Dear Friends of SOR,

It is with great joy and anticipation that our musicians, board members, and I welcome you to the 38^th season of the String Orchestra of the Rockies—truly a season of “Distinguished Debuts”! We launch our series showcasing the phenomenal violinist Ani Kavafian both as soloist and SOR Concertmaster, followed by the dazzling virtuosity of flutist Lorna McGhee, and we conclude our concerts with the prodigiously multi-faceted pianist and composer, Adam Neiman. I feel overwhelmed when I think of the abundance of talent coming to the Recital Hall stage!

Our annual August Bonner Park concert brought our SOR musicians together for an end-of-summer orchestra and chamber music program and it was a relaxed, fun-filled evening of music drawing close to 400 audience members from the community to enjoy a picnic and free concert in the park. If you missed it, we hope to see you next August!

This SOR season will once again be filled with outreach activities to inspire and educate young music students, from our annual “Rising Stars” program in November when we will be joined by accomplished young string players in a side-by-side performance of Grieg’s Holberg Suite to our Stockman Bank Master Class series which provides performance and coaching opportunities for local high school and UM music students. We are expanding our projects to include the new SOR “Studio Sessions,” an educational video series in collaboration with MTPR. All of these endeavors are meant to cultivate an awareness of what is possible musically for young performers and to broaden their musical horizons through interaction with our world-class guest artists and SOR musicians.

Finally—we all appreciate your continued support of our organization! Each of our esteemed musicians and board members and I are grateful to every one of you who enjoys our concerts. Thank you!

Now—let’s make music!

Musically yours,
Maria Larionoff
Artistic Director, SOR