Mighty 5® Tour
As reported earlier, the Utah Symphony embarked on Aug. 12 for a tour of five national parks in southern Utah. Music Director Thierry Fischer has agreed to jot down his thoughts about the trip along the way. Here is his first installment.

I arrived at Teasdale Community Park (several miles on the outskirts of Capitol Reef National Park) on Aug. 12 shortly before 7 p.m.–just one hour before our first full orchestra concert. Dark thunderclouds gathered, the wind was blowing, and lightning struck in the distance. But there was a double rainbow arced over the red sandstone cliffs of Capitol Reef and I was awestruck by the majestic beauty of it all.
I felt exhilarated by the evening that lay before us.
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Biography   Q&A
The Nielsen cycle is the third cycle I have planned with the Utah Symphony Orchestra. Cycles have played, and continue to play, a very significant role for the orchestra in past and present seasons.

When I first planned a Beethoven cycle, performed in the course of the last two seasons with the Utah Symphony Orchestra, I knew it was going to be a challenge. We performed the cycle in reverse order, as there is a more creative complexity that way, given the acrobatic demands of the early classical-style symphonies. One result was that the cycle provided a musical frame, and created a mood for all of us. It did not make the orchestra feel constrained by the work of a single composer; on the contrary it made it more open and receptive to the other repertoire in the season.

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