The Texarkana Symphony Orchestra starts its new season with the passionate sounds of cellist Zuill Bailey playing Dvorak at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 10, at the Perot Theatre.

In addition to Dvorak’s “Cello Concerto,” the TSO will play Mendelssohn’s “The Hebrides Overture” and Brahms’ “Third Symphony.”

“He’s one of the best young performers of this generation,” said Marc-André Bougie, TSO conductor, about Bailey, an up-and-coming young artist. He said the TSO is pleased to get Bailey to play for them at the right time.

“The piece he’s going to play, the “Dvorak Cello Concerto,” is one of the great cello pieces of the whole repertoire,” said Bougie.

Dvorak, said Bougie, came to America to teach in the 1890s. “He had never composed a cello concerto ... he had this conviction that the cello could not be featured as a solo instrument,” explained the conductor.

But Dvorak attended a concert with a Victor Herbert cello concerto and his mind changed.

“Apparently that concerto was a big hit, and that’s when Dvorak realized he could write something for the cello and make it sound halfway decent ... he wrote it all here, and the piece was an instant success with people,” Bougie said. It premiered in 1896 with Leo Stern playing the cello for the London Philharmonic.

The cello, said Bougie, is a physical instrument to play.

“You need to use your whole body. It’s very physical. You actually get tired playing this, the sheer strength of the instrument,” he explained. And even though people think of the cello as a low instrument like a bass, said Bougie, it does have high notes and reaches a very melodic upper register.

What makes Bailey an excellent cellist?

“Performers like Zuill Bailey own pieces,” said Bougie. Classical performers discover aspects about pieces as they play them repeatedly and redo them, he explained.

“They find new facets, new things they didn’t think about,” said Bougie. “And he’s one of those performers where he’s performed the piece so much he’s become one with the piece.”

With a musician like this it’s the kind of piece that’s within the musician, Bougie said.

“How can I do better than the last concert two weeks ago in New York City? How can I make that phrase more subtle, more mellow? Those are the types of questions those high-level performers ask themselves,” Bougie said.

To him, it’s a perfect program on tap with a beautiful overture, great concerto, and a symphony.

“Mendelssohn was a great early Romantic composer. He was rich, he was good looking, he was nice, he was polite, he was smart, he had it all,” said Bougie.

This overture was composed about Fingal’s Cave in the Hebrides archipelago in Scotland. The piece gives Mendelssohn’s impressions of that journey, said Bougie.

“It’s truly a general impression he had,” he said.

The second half of the TSO concert will be the Brahms “Third Symphony.” “It’s the first time TSO will perform a Brahms symphony,” Bougie said.

Brahms’ symphonies are rhythmically and metrically a bit more intricate than Beethoven’s symphonies, he said. But this symphony is Brahms’ most approachable one, he believes.

“(There is) lots of stark contrast between loud and soft. It’s in your face, just like Beethoven. Lots of very warm, Slavic-like themes in there,” Bougie said.

It’s no surprise TSO kicks off the season with some Romantic composers. This year’s season is titled “Isn’t it Romantic.” Next up for TSO after this concert will be a seasonal special, the Christmas Family Spectacular, on Dec. 20.



(Tickets are $40, $33, $26, $19, and $7. For more information or to buy tickets, call the Perot Box Office at 903-792-4992 or visit www.texarkanasymphony.org.)