If you’re scratching your head worrying about what to get mom for Mother’s Day, here’s an idea: Pack a picnic supper with a nice bottle of wine and those store-bought flowers you picked up at the last minute, grab a blanket and head out to Udall Park on Saturday, May 13, and Reid Park on Sunday, May 14, and treat mom to live music under the stars.
Start mom’s weekend on Saturday with Arizona Symphonic Winds under the baton of founder and conductor László Veres as it opens its 38th “Music in the Park” season with a pre-Mother’s Day concert. The concert starts at 7 p.m. at Udall Park’s László Veres Amphitheatre, 7200 E. Tanque Verde Road.
Guest bassoonist Marissa Olegario, an assistant professor of bassoon at the University of Arizona Fred Fox School of Music, will be featured on Czech composer Julius Fučík’s Concertino for Bassoon and Pollack’s “My Yiddishe Momme,” which also will feature Veres on clarinet.
Saturday’s program also includes Mark Wolfram‘s “March László,” which the retired Hollywood composer and Tucson resident penned in Veres’s honor in 2015, Handel’s “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” and selections from “Cabaret.” Guest conductor Matt Stout will lead the ensemble in the finale: Dvorák’s “Humoresque,” “Salute to New York City” arranged by Bullock and “America the Beautiful.”
Admission is free, although donations are accepted. The Winds series runs Saturdays through June 3.
On Sunday, Khris Dodge opens the Tucson Pops Orchestra‘s 69th season of “Music Under the Stars” at Reid Park’s DeMeester Outdoor Performance Center, 900 S. Randolph Way, near East 22nd Street and South Country Club Road.
This is Dodge’s first spring series since assuming the role of Pops music director and conductor from Veres, who was at the podium for 32 years before retiring last June.
Tucson Pops Orchestra will celebrate mom in its spring “Music Under the Stars” series opener on Mother’s Day, May 14.
Tucson’s soulfully voiced baritone Joe Bourne joins the pops for its Mother’s Day concert, performing R&B classics and American Songbook standards including “When I Fall in Love,” “Nature Boy,” “What A Wonderful World” and “Unforgettable.”
Sunday’s concert also will pay tribute to one of Bourne’s musical colleagues, the late blues-jazz singer George Howard, who died April 14 at the age of 72.
The orchestra will celebrate mom with Brahms’ lullaby “Wiegenlied,” a moving tribute to a mother’s love; and Dvorák’s poignant “Songs My Mother Taught Me.”
Sunday’s concert begins at 7 p.m. and admission is free, although the orchestra is asking a suggested donation of $10 per person for those who are able.
Tucson Pops Orchestra, comprised of moonlighting Tucson Symphony Orchestra and University of Arizona musicians, will perform on Sundays through May 28. On July 1, the orchestra will perform an Independence Day concert at St. Augustine Cathedral downtown, introducing its Tucson Pops Chorus under the direction of Matthew Holter and Chach Snook. For more
information, visit tucson pops.org or call 520-722-5853.
Michael T Anderson, sound technician, gives longtime Tucson Pops Orchestra Maestro László Veres a gift during Veres final performance with the Tucson Pops Orchestra on June 12, 2022. Veres retired from Tucson Pops Orchestra, which he led for the past 32 years. Video by Rebecca Sasnett, Arizona Daily Star.
