From The Heartland Celebrates Tulsa Music Connections

Signature Symphony at TCC Announces 2017-2018 Season

“From the Heartland: Tulsa Music Connections” is a year-long celebration of music with Tulsa ties. The 2017-2018 season of the Signature Symphony at Tulsa Community College will feature our city’s rich cultural history through the connections we have to family and artists.

“The 2017-2018 marks my third season with Signature Symphony and a return to our foundation for arts and culture by celebrating Tulsa’s musical family of current and former residents and their contributions in composing and creating music,” said Andrés Franco, Signature Symphony at TCC Music Director and Conductor. “This season is dedicated to uncovering Tulsa’s musical treasures.”

The 2017-2018 season opens in September with music reminiscent of Tulsa’s rich Art Deco era, the oil boom of the roaring 20s, and the emergence of the Jazz Age featuring guest artist and trumpet player Byron Stripling. Also in September, world-renowned pianist Horacio Gutiérrez returns to Tulsa, appearing on the TCC Southeast Campus, the same campus where his sister, Mary, has been an associate professor of biology for many years. Tulsa trumpet player and vocalist Jeff Shadley as well as Signature Symphony at TCC oboist Lisa Wagner and English hornist Sarah Evans will be featured prominently this season.

“We honor the accomplishments of our own by presenting performances of works by composers with local ties such as Tulsa Opera’s Artistic Director Tobias Picker, University of Tulsa Professor Joseph Rivers and a world premiere by The bArt Center for Music’s Director of the Conservatory Noam Faingold, who also teaches at TCC,” said Franco.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko, University of Tulsa’s Distinguished Professor of Literature, and one of Russia’s most celebrated poets, partnered with Dimitri Shostakovich, resulting in a rarely heard piece based on one of Yevtushenko’s poems. Signature Symphony at TCC will present this piece as a celebration of Yevtushenko’s incredible contributions to our city’s cultural life over the last 30 years.

“From the Heartland: Tulsa Music Connections” will also feature the voices of the Signature Chorale, Tulsa Opera Young Artists, and help discover Tulsa’s next generation of talent with Tulsa Sings! This is a new competition, presented by Signature Symphony, open to anyone in northeastern Oklahoma. Finalists will have the privilege to sing with Broadway’s Scott Coulter and other top vocalists from New York during “Tulsa Sings: 100 Years of Song,” the final Pops performance in April. The winner will be selected by audience members. In December, we pay tribute to our roots, as Signature Symphony founder Barry Epperley appears as a very special guest conductor in Tulsa’s most beloved Christmas tradition, “Christmas in Tulsa.”

The 2017-2018 season continues our multi-year Signature Symphony initiative, entitled “The Mahler Project.” Now in its second year, the orchestra will perform a Mahler symphony in concert, preceded by a multimedia exploration of his life and work each season. This season Signature Symphony will perform Mahler’s Symphony No. 5.

Since its formation in 1979, the Signature Symphony at TCC has been committed to providing rich musical experiences through its performances and valuable musical instruction through its outreach to support music education and aspiring musicians. Our goal is to expose more than 4,000 students each year to classical music and help instill a lifelong love of music through the Higher Scale Music Outreach Program. Seedling Symphony, a program developed by Signature Quartet musicians, raises the level of music exposure for early childhood by introducing young children six and under to complex and intricate music using string instruments. Seedling Symphony works with children in early learning centers throughout the Tulsa area, in addition to performances with hands on activities open to the public twice a year presented in collaboration with TCC’s Child Development program. Our Free Open Rehearsals, before every Classics concert, allows music lovers of all ages to experience professional orchestra rehearsals and enjoy educational interactions with our conductor, musicians and guest artists. The Free Open Rehearsals are Sept. 21, Nov. 2, Jan. 25, March 15 and April 19 for the 2017-2018 season.

The Signature Symphony at TCC is made possible in part by a grant from the Oklahoma Arts Council.

Season renewals and season tickets are on sale now for the Classics and Pops series. Season ticket prices start at $60. Individual ticket prices start at $12 for a performance. Student rush tickets are available on the day of the performance for $5 with student ID. For information on the 2017-2018 season including performance dates and times or to purchase tickets call 918-595-7777.

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TCC is one of the most comprehensive community colleges in the United States ranking in the Top 50 in the nation in the number of Associate Degrees it awards among nearly 1,100 community colleges nationwide. Serving more than 25,000 students annually in credit courses, TCC is the state’s largest two-year college with four campuses in the Tulsa area. For more information on TCC, visit www.tulsacc.edu. 

TCC Mission Statement

Tulsa Community College betters its community through the intellectual achievement, creative energy, and responsible citizenship of its students, faculty, and staff by their engagement in teaching, learning, and service opportunities that transform and enrich lives. Tulsa Community College commits to innovative, flexible, and affordable public higher education that responds to a dynamic global environment.