LAKEPORT – On Sunday, May 9, the Lake County Symphony will present another in its increasingly popular annual Mothers Day concerts, once again heavily weighted toward popular music from stage and screen.

It will be held starting at 3 p.m. at the Marge Alakzsay Center located on the campus of Lakeport Unified School District in Lakeport.

The concert is presented by Clear Lake Performing Arts.

Orchestra director John Parkinson has entitled the concert "Curtain Up" with selections from a wide variety of movie themes sure to please those moms in the audience who grew up watching their favorites on the silver screen.

They include excerpts from "No Business like Show Business," "Phantom of the Opera," "Don't Rain on my Parade," "Everything's Coming up Roses" and "If he Walked into my Life." followed by two pieces from "The Wizard of Oz" – "Over the Rainbow" and "We're Off to see the Wizard."

A medley Parkinson calls "Go West" features music from such movie westerns as the "Magnificent Seven," "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," and "Hang 'em High."

Next on the program is a concert suite from the movie "Dances with Wolves" after which Parkinson and the orchestra move into the pirate mode with selections from the feature film "Hook" and several themes from Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean."

At intermission the ladies of the CLPA Auxiliary will serve complimentary Mother's Day cookies and juice to attendees, after which the CLPA Youth Orchestra, temporarily under the direction of skilled musician and former CLPA scholarship student Eleanor Cook, will play two movie music themes.

Cook will be filling in for regular conductor Wes Follett who will be traveling to a family event. Her choices for the program will be the "Love Theme from Titanic" and "Colors of the Wind" from "Pocahontas."

The ever-popular auction of the Conductor's Baton follows, with individual audience members pledging money to not only help fund the symphony, but also to win the chance to take the podium and lead the full orchestra in a rousing rendition of John Phillips Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever."

Conductor Parkinson assures prospective bidders that no prior conducting experience is necessary.

"We have over half a hundred highly skilled musicians ready to follow that baton no matter who waves it" he says.

In the past, enthusiastic bidders have helped to generate many hundreds of dollars for the orchestra.

The symphony's second half will open with a medley of themes from 007 – the James Bond epics – and concert selections from "Superman Returns" as well as complex and difficult passages from "Spider Man," which the orchestra has been practicing diligently.

As a finale – and as a salute to Lake County "Trekkies" – Parkinson has chosen a medley called "Star Trek Through the Years." It includes themes from "Star Trek – the Motion Picture," "Deep Space Nine," "The Inner Light," "Generations," and "Voyager."

The last selection on the program will be a suite from "The Star Wars Epic," which features "Princess Leia's Theme" from Episode IV, "A New Hope," "Darth Vader's Theme," and "The Forest Battle," from Episode V: "The Empire Strikes Back and Episode VI: "Return of the Jedi."and the main title theme from "Star Wars" Episodes I through VI.

Admission to the CLPA concerts is $15 for CLPA members and $20 for the general public.

CLPA memberships may also be purchased at the door. Youths under 18 are admitted free.

For information contact Connel Murray, 707-277-7076.

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Written by: Connel Murray

Published: 27 April 2010