Nobel Concert Expands on the Conference’s Medicine Theme

The annual Nobel Concert takes this year’s Conference theme of “Medicine: Prescription for Tomorrow” and explores its musical references in history. The program includes the “Transformation” scene from the Jekyll and Hyde musical to tunes for patents medicines to a premiere of a symphonic score for the first horror film ever filmed, Thomas Edison’s Frankenstein from 1910. This performance begins at 8:00 p.m. in Christ Chapel, Tuesday, October 3. The event is free and open to the pubic.

Warren Friesen, conductor of the Gustavus Symphony Orchestra, is the artistic director behind the program for “Physicians, Healers, Quacks and Madmen.” With the combined efforts of the Symphony, the Gustavus Chamber Singers and members of the music faculty, Friesen takes the audience through a century of music which refers to a range of perspectives of medicine, those who practice it, abuse it and those who stretch the boundaries of science.

The program is a wild variety of performances and genres. Tenor Nick Wayne presents the first transformation scene from the Bricusse and Wildhorn musical Jekyll and Hyde with the symphony. The symphony’s percussionists then present Jeff Kowalkowski’s T’HEM HERA CHEPY, a work which features the skills of the young musicians working only with empty prescription bottles. Gustavus instructor in music Michele Gillman has composed a musical score for Edison’s 1910 Frankenstein which will be premiered as the film is shown during the concert.

Additional works by pianist Yumiko Oshima-Ryan presenting the first movement of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, Debussy’s The Sacred and Profane Dances by harpist Phala Tracy and Borodin’s Overture to Prince Igor are interspersed in the program. Conductor Gregory Aune then leads the chamber singers as they perform a bit of musical “relief” with the advertisements for Radway’s Ready Relief patent medicine.

The public is cordially invited to join the Gustavus community as the Department of Music explores the themes of medicine found in music, from the outrageous and the amusing, to those filled with terror and wonder. Tuesday’s event is free and open to the public and begins in Christ Chapel at 8:00 p.m.