Discoveries: The French Influencers

Sarah Ioannides, conductor
Farrenc – Overture No. 1
Liszt – “Pastoral Music at the Manger” from Christus
Bizet – Symphony in C Major
1 hour. No intermission.

Oxford-trained conductor Sarah Ioannides, music director of Symphony Tacoma, leads a program devoted to musical influencers—and those whom they inspired. Berlioz and Schumann both greatly admired the music of innovative 19th-century French composer Louise Farrenc, who battled sexism in music—and won. Liszt got the idea for Christus, an oratorio about the life of Christ, from Handel’s Messiah. In his exuberant Symphony in C Major, Bizet not only emulates, but directly quotes, his teacher Gounod.