“Follow the Yellow Brick Road”

The Yellow Brick Road leads to Bedford!

Join the Bedford Community Orchestra for their Spring Concert on Saturday, April 29, at 7:30pm in the Bedford Middle School Auditorium located at 503 Longwood Ave in the town Bedford.

The Wizard of Oz won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Over the Rainb­ow” in 1939 and became known as Judy Garland’s signature song. The BCO will bring Dorothy, the Lion, Tinman, and the Scarecrow to Bedford as they perform selections from the Wizard of Oz including “We’re Off to See the Wizard, If I Only Had a Brain, Merry Land of Oz, Ding Dong the Witch is Dead, and Over the Rainbow.”

The orchestra will also be performing Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. In 1913, the Rite of Spring was written to accompany a ballet performance depicting various ritual dances of Spring, where a young girl was chosen to be sacrificed, who later dances herself to death. In Paris, the premier performance of this avant-garde ballet caused a riot and theater-goes chased the composer and choreographer out of the theater and down the street. The following year, the Rite of Spring music score was performed without the ballet, as a concert piece with only the orchestra, and both Stravinsky and the music received the highest reviews. The Rite of Spring has since been considered by many as one of the most influential works of the 20^th century.

Other selections for the evening will include the spanish Serenata and Arietta, both by Leroy Anderson, Michel Legrand’s “You Must Believe in Spring,” the russian The Red Calvary March, Procession of the Sardar from Caucasian Sketches, The Captains and the Kings, selections from “The King and I”, Evangeline: Two Cajun Folksongs, and Duke Ellington’s Caravan!

Suggest Donation $10/person. For more information visit www.BedfordCommOrch.org or call 540/947-0208.