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Review: Charlotte Symphony's Royal Celebration Delivers Brassy, Breathtaking Music

Oct 23, 2018

Charlotte isn't known as a city that treasures its heritage, so it was gratifying to see that Charlotte Symphony was dedicating its Music for a Royal Celebration concert to the 250th anniversary of the Queen City's founding. Presumably, the audience that filled Knight Theater knew what all the celebration was about. If they didn't, nobody was going to fill them in from the podium, although we had an able emissary from the Crown onstage in Charlotte Symphony maestro Christopher Warren-Green, who conducted at Their Majesties' last two Royal Weddings in his native UK.

Warren-Green regaled us, instead, with anecdotes about programming Sir William Walton's "Crown Imperial March" at the most recent Royal Wedding and the fire emergency that marred the premiere of George Frederic Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks in 1749. This was the latest of the three Handel works that Symphony performed, including "Zadok the Priest" (1727) and excerpts from the Water Music (1717) - and the only one written during Queen Charlotte's lifetime (1744-1818). She wouldn't become queen until 1761, however, seven years before her eponymous Charlotte Town was incorporated.

Read the full review here.