HRO Previews Summer Tour

Sanders Theatre was almost as vacant as the campus itself last night during the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra's concert--only a hundred people turned out to hear the student orchestra try out its musical repertoire for this summer's international tour.

The group played a compendium of works from this year's repertoire: Brahms' Variations on a Theme of Haydn, the first part of Stravinsky's Petrouchka, and the third and fourth movements of Brahms' Symphony Number 2 in D Major.

They also played Benjamin Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, a recent addition, and two entirely new pieces, Leonard Bernstein's Overture to Candide and Darius Milhaud's La Creation du Monde.

The concert was the first in a series of six, the next five of which will be performed throughout Italy over a 10-day span beginning June 8. The group has been planning the trip for over a year.

The tour, which has in past years taken the group to such diverse locations as Asia and Eastern Europe, usually takes place every four years.

"A lot of the kids who may not have traveled will have a real chance to see another culture," said HRO Music Director James D. Yannatos. "For some, it may be the first time out of the country...it's another part of their education."

The tour is also intended to help the group form bonds that will be useful onstage. "It's a great time for them without academic pressures to be together, to get to know each other in a much more informal way," Yannatos explained. "It helps musically, it helps in development of relationships."

Fred S. Moghtader, a Cambridge resident who came to see the concert said "I think all the segments [of the orchestra] were carrying their part and it sounded good."

Audience members seemed to concur. "The precision of the group is incredible. They seem very focused and attuned to each other," said Matthew E. Johnson '99. "A lot of these pieces are their favorites and you can tell that they're really enjoying them."