Music Director David Lockington will lead the Modesto Symphony Orchestra (MSO) in Fauré’s Requiem featuring the MSO Chorus, directed by Daniel R. Afonso Jr., on Friday and Saturday, May 10 and 11, at 8 p.m. at the Gallo Center for the Arts. The Requiem will also feature soprano Carrie Hennessey and baritone Joseph Wiggett. The program will conclude with Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.
The program will be performed at the Gallo Center for the Arts, Mary Stuart Rogers Theater, 1000 I St., Modesto.
Ticket prices range from $19 to $94 and are available through the Gallo Center for the Arts Ticket Office at (209) 338-2100 or ModestoSymphony.org.
Student tickets, at $12 are on sale now, and are subject to availability. Two student priced tickets may be purchased with each valid student ID.
Ticket Office Hours are Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays noon to 6 p.m.
“This will be the first time the MSO has performed Fauré’s Requiem and we are excited to be able to showcase the MSO Chorus on such a beautiful piece,” said Caroline Nickel, President and CEO of the Modesto Symphony Orchestra Association. “We are extremely proud of the MSO Chorus and can’t wait for the community to be able to experience this piece come together.”
Over the past 35 years, David Lockington has developed an impressive conducting career in the United States. A native of Great Britain, he served as the Music Director of the Grand Rapids Symphony from January 1999 to May 2015, and is currently the orchestra’s Conductor Laureate. He has held the position of Music Director with the Modesto Symphony since May 2007 and in March 2013, Lockington was appointed Music Director of the Pasadena Symphony. He has a close relationship with the Orquesta Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias in Spain, where he was the orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor from 2012 through 2016.
Since his arrival to the United States in 1978 he has held positions with several other American orchestras. He began his career as a cellist and was the Principal with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain for two years. After completing his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Cambridge where he was a choral scholar, he came to the United States on a scholarship to Yale University where he received his Master's Degree in cello performance and studied conducting with Otto Werner Mueller. He was a member of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and served as assistant principal cellist with the Denver Symphony Orchestra for three years before turning to conducting.
Daniel R. Afonso, Jr. has served as conductor of the Modesto Symphony Orchestra Chorus since its foundation in 2001. He has prepared the ensemble for performances of the best-known works for chorus and orchestra, from Bach’s contatas to Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. Afosno is also the Coordinator of Vocal and Choral Studies at CSU, Stanislaus. He received a B.M.E. degree from the Universidade do Rio de Janeiro (UNI-Rio), a M.M. degree in Choral Conducting from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and a D.M.A. degree in Choral Conducting and Pedagogy from the University of Iowa. Dr. Afonso is originally from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and has studied conducting with Carlos Alberto Figueiredo, Cees Rotteveel, Eph Ehly, and William Hatcher.
He is strongly committed to the performance of new music and has commissioned and premiered many new choral works in the last few years, including several of his own works as well as works by young composition students.
The Modesto Symphony Orchestra is a Resident Company of the Gallo Center for the Arts.
