Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Listen Up: Seminars on Music is a weekly gathering of music lovers every Wednesday morning, hosted by AZMF’s Resident Artist, Josh Condon. Each session combines music history, analysis, active listening, and discussion, designed to enhance your listening experience and overall music appreciation. Listen Up covers all genres, emphasizing our common humanity across all musical styles! Coffee and refreshments provided.
Space has long captured the imagination of the general public, and of course, composers as well. Despite not being able to hear music in space, it hasn’t stopped composers from trying to create something that evidently sounds…like space!
Much of what we hear today in popular culture originated with the 1914-1917 composition The Planets by English composer Gustav Holst – an orchestral suite based on the astrological gods whom the planets were named after. But who influenced Holst? How does a composer decide what sounds “space-like”? How does the music illustrate these astrological figures?
Together, we’ll learn about Holst, listening to the entire suite and unpacking and discussing the work movement by movement, setting us up for the following week as we explore how John Williams used Holst’s work as his inspiration for composing Star Wars – music we’ll be hearing next March as part of our Festival Orchestra week!
Instructor
Josh Condon
As a pianist equally adept in the genres of jazz, pop, and classical, Josh Condon has served as music director/supervisor for over 40 musical theatre productions, in addition to leading concerts with symphony orchestras, choirs, jazz ensembles, and pop/rock bands. He has traveled the world as a music director and pianist for the Norwegian, Celebrity, and Princess Cruise Lines where he worked with numerous Broadway and West End performers.
Currently, Josh serves as Resident Artist and Director of Community Music Programs for Arizona Musicfest in Scottsdale, an organization which features concert performances of the music industry’s top talent. In addition to serving as Assistant Conductor for the Musicfest Festival Orchestra, he lectures on topics surveying a huge breadth of music history and analysis, including popular song, symphonic repertoire, jazz performance practice, musical theatre, and everything in between.
He also serves as Assistant Conductor for the North Valley Symphony Orchestra, and has appeared as Guest Conductor with the Scottsdale Symphony Orchestra, the Scottsdale Philharmonic, and the Arizona Musical Theatre Orchestra. Josh is passionate about using flexibility, positivity, and encouragement to create spaces where all can learn and perform to their best ability. He holds a BM in Jazz Studies from Ithaca College and an MM in Musical Theatre/Opera Music Direction from Arizona State University, and resides in Phoenix, AZ with his wife Lexy, their son Arlo, and their cat Sadie.