LW Orchestra will perform holiday favorites, Mozart and more at Dec. 14 c
The Leisure World Orchestra’s free annual holiday concert will be held Saturday, Dec. 14, in Clubhouse 2, at 1 p.m. The concert will feature old favorites and mark orchestra conductor Samuel Kim’s final performance as head of the group.
The orchestra formed shortly after Leisure World’s 1962 founding. Kim, the ensemble’s conductor for the past three years, will transfer the baton in January to Linda DeRungs, who brings her own distinguished conducting career to the director’s chair.
Kim will lead holiday music during the performance’s second half. A highlight is “Gesu Bambino,” by Italian American composer Pietro Yon, who was the Vatican’s first-ever titular organist. Kim will also lead the orchestra in four medleys of songs associated with the Christian and Jewish holidays. The orchestra’s finale under Kim’s baton will be Mozart’s 1779 “Gloria” joined by the choir of the Leisure World Korean Community Church, for which Kim is the music pastor. DeRungs, the orchestra’s newly appointed conductor, will showcase 18th and 19th century classical works during the concert’s first half.
The concert opens with “Procession of the Nobles,” an 1892 work by Rimsky-Korsakov, part of a group of composers called “The Mighty Handful” who integrated Russian folk elements into their classical works. DeRungs and the orchestra will perform the overture by Franz von Suppé from his German language operetta, “Poet and Peasant.” Orchestra member Mark Fronke will be the soloist for Mozart’s last completed work, the “Clarinet Concerto in A.”
The orchestra’s two 20th century pieces are the love theme from “The Godfather,” by Italian film composer Nino Rota; and Leroy Anderson’s “Blue Tango,” which in 1952 became the first contemporary instrumental recording to sell 1 million copies. Kim earned a doctorate in choral and orchestral conducting from the University of Southern California. DeRungs was a music educator for over 40 years whose Indiana high school program was featured in a Showtime documentary. She is also a skilled chamber group vocal soloist who was featured on a recording the BBC named among 1994’s Top-10 classical recordings.
