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Music is not merely sound. It's something more. It CONNECTS us. It becomes us. Music makes us laugh, cry and dance. It reminds us of wonderful yesterdays, and gives us hope for better tomorrows. We fall in love, and CONQUER milestones, all with music. Music DEFINES generations and gives meaning to a moment. And when it's great, it deserves to be heard LIVE!
	The Mariposa Symphony Orchestra performs in the Mariposa County High School Feister Auditorium. On occasion, the dates selected for a performance must be changed to insure that Mariposa High School students are served as our community's first priority. You are encouraged to send an e-mail to mso@sti.net in order to receive automatically confirmed concert information as soon as it's available, contact the Arts Council office at (209) 966-3155 or info@arts-mariposa.org.
Our Appreciation to Brent Gilstrap for MSO photos
December 20, 2008 Annual Festive Holiday Concert Fiester Auditorium Mariposa County High School 7:00 PM The Mariposa County Arts Council is pleased to present your Mariposa Symphony Orchestra under founding Music Director/Conductor Les Marsden in its annual Festive Holiday Concert. One performance only, Saturday December 20 at 7:00 PM in the Fiester Auditorium of Mariposa County High School. Da-Da-Da-Dummmmmmmmm. The four most recognizable, famous, momentous and portentous notes in the history of all world music.The very musical statement of "fate knocking at the door." The product of a deeply troubled, complex man - shaking his fist at the thundering heavens in a rage against man's helplessness. Or not. Sure - the first part is absolutely correct: this is by far the most well-known musical motif ever written. Play those first four notes of the opening of Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth Symphony anywhere on the planet and recognition is instantaneous. But the rest of the legends? Uh-uh-uh-noooooooooooooooo. The story of Beethoven referring to that motif as "the sound of fate knocking at the door" is completely unverified. The source of that quote was Anton Schindler- Beethoven's secretary and assistant, who wrote - many years after his boss' death: "The composer himself provided the key to these depths when one day, in this author's presence, he pointed to the beginning of the first movement and expressed in these words the fundamental idea of his work: 'Thus Fate knocks at the door!'" That account appeared in Schindler's 1840 biography of Beethoven, 13 years after the composer had died.
Drawing of Beethoven from 1808, the time of the premiere of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies	Schindler, however, had a long history of unreliable or downright false reports, including the allegation that he actually forged chunks of Beethoven's journals. Schindler was also given to flights of great dramatic, romantic fancy, and this particular account of that motif identified as "fate" seems to be another fictional creation by Schindler. That idea was never independently corroborated by anyone else who knew Beethoven, nor - most important:ever by Beethoven himself, who did tend to write letters and make extensive writings on his own music. Schindler didn't even meet Beethoven until some six years after the symphony had been premiered and Beethoven's pupil Karl Czerny (who had known Beethoven since 1800) offered another source of those four notes: he claimed Beethoven 'stole' the call of the Yellowhammer, a European bird whose song the composer heard while on a stroll through a park and that Beethoven acknowledged as much to Czerny. This seems much more plausible, and particularly as Beethoven was originally germinating the ideas for the Fifth Symphony as early as 1800 - yes, that year he met Czerny.

But in any case, that four-note motif is just the beginning of a truly brilliant and revolutionary work of music. I've written in the past in our program notes about the (basic) two types of classical music: most pieces are either programmatic (deliberately written to tell a story or to use music to depict the non-musical sounds of our world) and absolute music: music written to stand on its own legs, to simply be a structured form of music with no physically-inspired subtextural meaning. Beethoven wrote both types - and somewhat interestingly, there was a concert on December 22, 1808 conducted by Beethoven himself which premiered both his (absolute music) Fifth Symphony and his (programmatic) Sixth Symphony. Those two extraordinary pieces of music, so different and yet sharing the same brilliant stamp of an individualist genius-master. The concert was apparently just short of a major disaster: there had been only one rehearsal, the orchestra played very badly, the theatre was freezing cold, the concert ran on for over four hours, the final work of the concert (the premiere of Beethoven's Choral Fantasy for chorus, orchestra and piano solo performed by... you guessed it, himself) became such a mess that Beethoven had to actually stop the performance and start it over again. The audience reaction to that 1808 concert was pretty bad, but a year later when the Fifth Symphony was performed again - in far better circumstances - it was a great success and has remained so to this day.

Earlier this season, the Mariposa Symphony Orchestra celebrated the bicentennial of that December 22, 1808 first performance of Beethoven's Sixth ('Pastoral') Symphony and now we'll do the same for its numerically-lower sibling. And we'll do so just two days short of both works' 200th anniversary. And just four days after Beethoven's 238th birthday. The concert's second half will of course also offer popular Holiday favorites our audience has come to expect and relish; truly: a not-to-be-missed annual event bound to put a broad smile on the face and fill the heart with good will.

Amazing, isn't it - that this remarkable piece of music will be heard in Mariposa, live. Probably for the first time ever in our history here: Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, in c minor. Live. Don't miss it. For further information or tickets, call or visit the Mariposa County Arts Council, Inc., parent organization of the MSO at (209) 966-3155 (Monday - Friday, 9AM-5PM) The Arts Council Office is located at 5009 Fifth Street (adjacent to The Pizza Factory) in beautiful historic Mariposa. Tickets are offered at the MSO's always-affordable prices: $6 for adults and $4 for students; tickets are also available at the Mariposa County Visitors Center at the north end of town across from the Miners Inn; call the Visitors Center at (209) 966-7081 for hours.

Music and Mariposa? Ahhhhh, Paradise!!!

Conductor
Les Marsden – a peek beyond the wand

As Actor - In a lengthy career as a Los Angeles- and Manhattan-based actor which was ended only by accident-caused disability, he starred on stage in well over 3,000 performances in theatres across the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom including London's West End and Scotland's Edinburgh Festival. Roles ran the gamut from the classics to musical comedy and include Lopakhin in Chekov's The Cherry Orchard, Peter Poll in James Kirkwood's final play Stage Stuck to Touchstone in Shakespeare's As You Like It and even as all the Marx Brothers in various Marx revivals and original works. Other favorite roles included Max Prince in Neil Simon's Laughter on the 23rd Floor, Ali Hakim in Oklahoma! (five separate productions,) Jimmy Deegan in the celebrated (and first-ever) revival of Cole Porter's 1930 The New Yorkers in Manhattan's historic Town Hall and countless others. Nominated for the world's most prestigious acting honor, Great Britain's Laurence Olivier Award (for Comedy Performance of the Year) and many more citations including the London Critics' Award, the Carbonell, Scotland's Fringe First Award, etc. Veteran of innumerable TV commercials seen nationally and internationally and TV series such as General Hospital, Mel Brooks' The Nutt House, the Bob Newhart Show and Al Franken's Lateline. Appeared in films from Robert Redford's Quiz Show to The Siege with Bruce Willis, Denzel Washington and Annette Bening. Has worked with or directed Albert Finney, Vanessa Redgrave, Jeremy Irons, Burt Reynolds, Harvey Korman, Charles Nelson Reilly, Matthew Broderick and many more. As Playwright - His A Night at Harpo's is the only biographic show ever allowed by Harpo's widow and children and was written with their full cooperation. Mr. Marsden performed his award-winning one-man show extensively around the world; likewise his interpretations of Groucho, Harpo and Chico Marx in various productions was endorsed by the elderly Groucho Marx himself. Union affiliations: Actors' Equity, the Screen Actors' Guild, AFTRA, the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, etc.

As Musician - classically trained on many instruments including piano (and all keyboards,) trumpet (and most all brass,) concert grand harp and others. Composed/conducted many symphonic and chamber works from early teens beginning with his Symphony #1 at age 13; most recently premiered his Mariposa Festival Overture at the inaugural concert of the Mariposa Symphony Orchestra, which he founded in 2002 and serves as Music Director and Conductor. Has also composed lighter works including the score and lyrics for the successful musical comedy The Telethon Fool. Member of the Conductor's Guild.