Third annual Mahler Festival of Long Island

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Under the direction of Eric R. Stewart, the Long Island Festival Orchestra will take on Gustav Mahler’s most famous and challenging work: Symphony No. 5 in C# minor, on Friday July 12. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. at Rydzeski Hall at East Islip High School.

Established in 2022, the Long Island Festival Orchestra is a New York-based ensemble of dedicated musicians taking on large-scale works that are rarely performed for the Long Island community.

This concert marks the third annual Mahler Festival of Long Island, a project begun in 2022 by Stewart to celebrate these great works in the composer’s birth month of July. The Fifth will be performed without intermission.

Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony is deeply personal, written in the prime of the composer’s life. The extremes in the music—from the darkness of the funeral march to the ecstatic joy of the finale—faithfully reflect the highs and lows of his own life at the time of composition: from surviving a near-death experience to marrying his beloved Alma and being appointed director of the Vienna Court Orchestra.

“There are few composers who are capable of the range of emotion that Gustav Mahler expresses in his music. Shifting from exuberance to terror in mere moments, it challenges the orchestra to the limits of their abilities,” shared Stewart. “The Fifth Symphony is a true showcase of this. The austere opening funeral march is followed by one of the most intense and intricate movements in all symphonic music. The symphony continues with a movement featuring principal horn, David Stevens, followed by a message of love to Mahler’s wife, Alma. It closes with an ecstatic finale.”

The suggested donation for the concert is $20, or $10 for seniors and students. Hear the dazzling finale yourself by attending the Mahler Festival of Long Island this Friday!

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Photo courtesy of the Long Island Festival Orchestra