OES presents ‘Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’

Published 3:00 am Monday, June 3, 2024

PENDLETON — The Oregon East Symphony will present its season finale concert, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” at 2:30 p.m., on Sunday, June 9, at the Vert Auditorium, 480 SW Dorion Ave.

This finale to OES’s 2023-24 concert season will feature music from the film “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” by Patrick Doyle and John Williams, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Paul Dukas and “La Mer (The Sea)” by Claude Debussy.

The 2005 fantasy film “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” is based on the J.K. Rowling novel of the same name. “Goblet of Fire” is the fourth book in the popular Harry Potter series and follows the titular young wizard being chosen by the Goblet of Fire to compete in the Triwizard Tournament. Music for the film was composed by Scottish composer Patrick Doyle with additional music by John Williams from the first three films.

According to an OES press release, Paul Dukas’s symphonic poem “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” is based on a 1797 poem of the same name by German poet and novelist Johann Wolfgang Goethe. Goethe was an early practitioner of the proto-romantic “Sturm und Drang” (storm and urge) movement and is most well known for his epistolary novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther.”

“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” depicts the apprentice of a master sorcerer attempting to use magic in which he is not fully trained to circumvent having to do chores. The apprentice’s enchanting of a broom to fetch water results in disaster until the master returns to break the spell. Dukas’s composition later served as the basis for an iconic sequence in Disney’s 1940 film “Fantasia.”

Debussy’s “La Mer (The Sea)” is an orchestral work in three sections. The first movement, “From Dawn Until Noon on the Sea,” depicts the ocean at dawn with the waters gradually awakening. “The Play of the Waves” evokes the movement of the sea’s waves and the final movement, “Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea,” recalls an approaching tempest.

Through a season sponsorship from the Pendleton Foundation Trust, the Oregon East Symphony is offering free general admission to “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”

Free tickets are for any unreserved, floor-level seat and can be picked up from a list of downtown Pendleton businesses and organizations that are listed on the OES website, www.OregonEastSymphony.org.

Reserved seats for the balcony or floor-level are available for purchase through the symphony office, 345 SW Fourth St., by calling 541-276-0302, or online.

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