WSO will take audience on a journey into space
For those who are interested in going to outer space but don’t want wear a space suit or set foot inside a space shuttle, there’s no need to worry. A trip to Trinity High School is all it will take.
The special journey into space will begin at 8 p.m. Saturday when the Washington Symphony Orchestra kicks off its 2013-14 season with “Space – the Final Frontier.”
The concert will feature a composition, “Window Beyond the Earth,” written for the WSO by local composer Dominic Carrola. The piece will be accompanied by an International Space Station video arranged by Winter Morning Pictures producer Ron Hankison.
Concertgoers will enjoy a complete space-themed repertoire as the WSO also performs “2001:” A Space Odyssey,” “Star Wars,” Star Trek,” “The Planets” and music from the science-fiction fantasy series “The Who.”
In addition, the audience will have the opportunity to view an informational display on Joe Walker, a Washington native who was an alumnus of Trinity High School and Washington & Jefferson College, and was one of the first men to travel to outer space in the 1960s.
“I am so excited about this concert – for myself and for the audience,” said Hankison, 65, a Pittsburgh native and Peters Township High School graduate.
Hankison obtained a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Maryland Institute College of Arts in 1972 and earned a master’s degree in leadership and liberal studies from Duquesne University in 2001. He worked as a freelance video writer, director and producer until his recent retirement.
“Concertgoers can expect to be amazed and inspired by a brilliant musical composition that Dominic Carrola composed, supported by the breathtaking views of planet Earth created by the astronauts aboard the International Space Station and by the Hubble Deep-Space Telescope, assembled to give an overarching sense of our planet and its place in the cosmos,” Hankison said.
Astronauts on the International Space Mission created the material used by Hankison, who then edited it together to support Carrola’s music.
“I did some color correction and changed some of the speeds of the clips and used some other special effects to make the material flow better from one scene to the next,” Hankison said, “but beyond that, it was just a matter of arranging the timing and content of the video and photographic material to support the music.”
Carrola, 21, who is a Glenshaw native who resides in Washington and is the pianist for the First United Methodist Church in Houston, is eager to see the audience’s response to his piece and accompanying video.
“My vision for this was to write something that could be a concert piece, but could be reminiscent of some of the great space film scores,” Carrola said. “I wanted parts of the piece to be mechanical sounding to describe the space station. Then I tried to contrast that with a big grand sound to represent space, mixed in with a bit of darkness and hostility – not too much, but just enough to say that this is not our world. Also mixed in are some tones of romanticism – some bittersweet and some heroic.”
Carrola was homeschooled so he could cultivate his skills as a composer. He later attended the City Music Center at Duquesne University, where he studied piano and composition with Israel Kremen, a Russian musician.
“I am honored to have had the opportunity to write at piece for the WSO. They are a tremendous organization,” Carrola said. “Not a lot of orchestras out there are cultivating new art, but the WSO does a wonderful job of bringing fresh art to the community. There is nothing drab or stuffy about their presentation, yet they do a nice job of mixing classic pieces into their performances.
“Being commissioned to write this piece was a wonderful opportunity for me, and I feel certain that the video will make the audience feel everything I intended them to.”
Tickets can be purchased at all branches of Washington Financial Bank, Citizens Library in Washington and Peters Township Library in McMurray. Tickets also will be sold at the door.