Gilded Age Orchestra of Newport Musical Program

Immerse yourself in music from Season 1 of HBO’s “The Gilded Age.” Enter a world of elegance and beauty and experience live music as if you waltzed directly out of a time machine. This historically accurate program will include selections featured in the series, performed by many of the actual musicians who portrayed period artists on-screen, as well as a special performance by Dr. Christopher Brellochs, who appeared as composer/conductor John Knowles Paine in the HBO series. Conductors Dr. Mark Stickney and Brellochs will also provide the historical background of the music. This program is sponsored in part by Historic Music of Newport.

Performers

Dr. Mark A. Stickney was appointed the Artistic Director of the Seacoast Wind Ensemble in 2016. Throughout his 20-year college teaching career, he held conducting, brass teaching, and music education positions at the Community College of Rhode Island, Oklahoma Panhandle State University, Plymouth State University, Salve Regina University, and Southern Utah University. An active clinic and guest conductor, Dr. Stickney has traveled throughout the country working with bands and orchestras of all levels. Dr. Stickney lives in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and is the founder of Historic Music of Newport, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the rich musical heritage of Newport. He also works part-time for the Preservation Society of Newport County and serves on the board of Newport Live Presents. He received his BA in Music and Religion from Gettysburg College, his MA in Tuba Performance from Montclair State University (N.J.), and his DMA in Wind Conducting from Rutgers University (N.J).

Dr. Christopher Brellochs is an internationally recognized lecturer, performer, music historian, and educator who serves as the Dean of the School of Music at the State University of New York at Schenectady and Adjunct Artist in Music at Vassar College. His scholarship is dedicated to unearthing forgotten gems of the late 19th and early 20th-century American repertoire, and, whenever possible, recreating them in the salons and concert halls for which they were originally conceived. He appeared in Season 1 of HBO’s “The Gilded Age” as composer/conductor John Knowles Paine and worked with the production company to ensure the historical accuracy of the scene. As both a classical and jazz saxophonist, he has performed nationally, including Carnegie Hall and Birdland, and internationally in Paris and Strasbourg, France, and Zagreb, Croatia. In 2011, Brellochs recorded the world premiere of Aaron Copland’s complete incidental music for “Quiet City”; he worked from the unpublished manuscript to bring this adaptation to life, which The Copland Estate and Boosey & Hawkes have embraced and published. The recording received radio play on National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition” and “Performance Today” and print reviews in Gramophone (Awards 2011) and Der Spiegel magazines. His YouTube channel, “Dr. B Music Theory,” has video tutorials along with excerpts from his “Music of the Gilded Age” documentaries.

Event thumbnail photo credit: Alison Cohen Rosa for HBO