Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


The Fenton Community Orchestra and Simply Strings are performing their annual Spring Concert April 26th and 27th.

The concerts will begin at 7pm at Fenton High School’s Ruby Zima Auditorium. Admission is free but donations are said to be gratefully accepted.

FCO Music Director and Conductor Andrew David Perkins says they’re excited to share their spring program with their audiences. He said “This program offers a wide array of music from the Romantic period, including Dvorak's Slavonic Dance No.1, Radetzky March by Johann Strauss, English Folk Song Suite by Vaughan Williams, and the Light Cavalry Overture by Franz Von Suppe. To balance this, we will perform the recently composed Huapango by Gabrielle Musella, and a segment of Zhou Tian’s Broken Ink: Listening to the Land. We will also feature Aaron Copland's mid-century classic Fanfare for the Common Man. It will not disappoint.”

Simply Strings, the FCO’s partner novice orchestra for adults, has been busy preparing the Finale to “The Bird” - Haydn’s String Quartet, op. 33. They are also performing Tim McCormick’s Donegal Fiddles, Henry Mancini’s timeless favorite Moon River, and the Finale from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony #5.

The FCO’s Board of Directors said it is also pleased to inaugurate a Memorial Scholarship in conjunction with the concert.

Board Chair Kathy Kortge said they’re pleased to begin their FCO Memorial Scholarship Fund, in memory of members they’ve lost. She said its primary purpose is to help current and future members with membership fees. In the future, she said they hope to expand the program to offer scholarship assistance for music lessons, camps such as Interlochen or Blue Lake, and various other growth opportunities. Kortge said their musicians develop their abilities, “our audiences will appreciate them all the more.”

The FCO said it’s proud to present free concerts so that those of any background may attend. All are welcome.