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Oh Oh Oh It's Magic: Symphony Orchestra Explores Broadway

University of Wyoming

The 2018-2019 Symphony Orchestra season at the University of Wyoming is shaping up to be a magical one. Literally. This season will have pieces inspired by famous magical stories such as “A Midsummer Night's Dream” and “The Nutcracker”.

Musical director Michael Griffith picked musical pieces that deal with magic and the magic music inspires.

“So the whole season in one-way shape or form will relate to magic. As it goes to this specific concert on Thursday evening, I’m calling this concert ‘The Magic of Broadway.’”

The orchestra will be performing an array of suits from Broadway including “Hamilton” and “The Phantom of the Opera” for their first concert.

The show is called “The Magic of Broadway, Times Square to Lincoln Center” and the night will consist of Broadway favorites such as suites from “Hamilton” “Phantom of the Opera” and “Funny Girl”.

Griffith wanted to present the magic of a specific place.

“If you know New York City at all Broadway not only runs directly through the theater district that’s why they call them Broadway shows. But it also goes within a block of Carnegie Hall and goes directly in front of Lincoln Center which is where the Metropolitan Opera is, and then you’re at Philharmonic and the New York City Ballet. Truly, from a musical standpoint is a magical street.”

This year was also Leonard Bernstein’s 100th Birthday so the Orchestra will be performing a medley of his Broadway hits.

“I chose a song from “Wonderful Town” another song from “On the Town” “A Boy Like That” and “I Have A Love” from West Side Story.”

The first concert of the season is Thursday, September 20 at 7:30 p.m. at University of Wyoming’s Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets for the General Public are $12 and $6 for students.

Taylar Dawn Stagner is a central Wyoming rural and tribal reporter for Wyoming Public Radio. She has degrees in American Studies, a discipline that interrogates the history and culture of America. She was a Native American Journalist Association Fellow in 2019, and won an Edward R. Murrow Award for her Modern West podcast episode about drag queens in rural spaces in 2021. Stagner is Arapaho and Shoshone.
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