Spokane Symphony Music Director Laureate Fabio Mechetti joined E.J. Iannelli in the KPBX studio to chat about his formative years with the orchestra as well the upcoming Masterworks concert that he will be leading.
Mechetti's first stint with the Spokane Symphony was as a young assistant conductor during the 1984–85 season under Gunther Schuller. He later returned in 1993 as the symphony's music director, a position he would hold until 2004.
Mechetti is leading the symphony once again for this weekend’s Masterworks concerts. The program includes works by the Brazilian composer Antônio Carlos Gomes as well as Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss.
The program is very much informed by opera. The Gomes piece that opens the concert is taken from the composer's 1870 opera Il Guarany, which tells the story of a romance between an Indigenous Guarani prince and the daughter of a Portuguese nobleman.
That's followed by three excerpts from Wagner's comic opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. One excerpt is from the opera's 'Dance of the Apprentices,' a forerunner to the waltz.
The final two pieces are both by Strauss: the tone poem Don Juan and a suite from his later comic opera, Der Rosenkavalier.
Mechetti will conduct the Spokane Symphony in both of this weekend's Masterworks performances. The first is on Saturday, October 22, 2022; the second is on Sunday, October 23.
Tickets and more information are available from the Spokane Symphony website.
