Celebrate USU Earth Week With the USU Symphony Orchestra

LOGAN — The USU Symphony Orchestra, directed by Sergio Bernal, celebrates Earth Day with a concert on April 19 at 7:30 p.m. in the Daines Concert Hall. The performance features faculty soloist Lauren Hunt and a presentation by USU physicist, Dr. Robert Davies, along with curated imagery by Laura Gelfand, Davies, and Radeyah Kaplan.

“As I was talking about this project with Wendi Hassan and Laura Gelfand, they suggested to do the concert in celebration of Earth Day and connected me with Caitlin McLennan, USU’s Sustainability Program Manager,” Bernal said. “She offered to include the concert in USU’s Earth Week. It is inspiring to see how people come together to promote a worthy cause.”

The symphony will perform Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony and Atterberg’s Horn Concerto in this low-waste event. Since 2018, the USU Symphony Orchestra has been offering paperless programs that audience members can access on their phones during the concert.

“Paperless programs seemed to be a simple way of reducing paper and ink consumption to help preserve our forests and reduce river contamination,” Bernal said. “Audience members have been very supportive, and the USU web design team provides excellent assistance in creating online programs for concertgoers to easily access.”

Davies will present Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony: Humanity and Nature, tying Beethoven’s love of people and nature to today’s pressing need for loving and taking care of our planet. Davies is co-creator of the Fry Street Quartet’s Crossroads Project, a feature-length cinematic performance fusing compelling science, evocative imagery, and powerful music.

As the USU Symphony Orchestra performs the Pastoral Symphony, nature-inspired imagery will appear on screens in the concert hall showing art from Beethoven’s time and modern-day photography.

“To me, the Pastoral Symphony invites humanity as a whole to celebrate the bounties of nature and reflect upon the need for people to care for one another,” Bernal said. “Beethoven’s love of nature is shared by painters, photographers, and scientists, who remind us that if we love our planet, our planet will love us back.”

Bernal says art and science will come alive in this concert through the immense communicative power of music.

The concert is at 7:30 p.m. in the Daines Concert Hall on April 19. Tickets are $10 for adults, $8 for seniors, and free for USU students with ID and youth ages 8-17. Davies, Bernal, and Kaplan will be discussing Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony on Access Utah from 9-10 a.m. on April 18. For more information and tickets to the performance, contact the CCA Box Office in room L101 of the Chase Fine Arts Center on USU’s campus, call 435-797-8022, or go online to cca.usu.edu.