NEC Chamber Orchestra

The NEC Chamber Orchestra, NEC’s conductorless orchestra, was founded in 2000 by double bassist Donald Palma, a founding member of the conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. The guidance by Palma, who coached tonight's concert, is supplemented throughout the season by other members of the NEC faculty, including Paul Katz, Roger Tapping, and Hugh Wolff.

Music of the classical orchestra era by Handel, Haydn, and Mozart is at the core of virtually every program, along with baroque and modern works written for this mostly-strings configuration.

Tonight's program features two lively and mostly light-hearted works with sunny Italianate and gypsy dance-like elements prevailing. In between, Haydn explores a "Sturm und drang" emotional landscape in that most dramatic of keys, D Minor.

Wolf Italian Serenade
Haydn Symphony No. 80 in D Minor
Bartok Divertimento (1939)