Robert Thies

This weekend, Central Oregon Symphony, Bend’s community orchestra, starts its season with the 2023 Fall Concert.

The soloist for the symphony’s two concerts on Saturday and Sunday at Bend High School, 230 NE Sixth St., is concert pianist Robert Thies, a musician whom Maestro Michel Gesme has worked with several times over the past 25 years. Thies has also made appearances over the years with another classical music organization in town, High Desert Chamber Music.

“He’s a fantastic player,” Gesme said. “Super talented. … It’s all about the music. It’s not about how he looks. … He’s won major international piano competitions. He’s played with big-time orchestras. He’s also a major first-call artist for the L.A. recording studios.”

Thies will play on the concert’s opening piece, Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Concerto for Piano No. 4, which is more reserved and refined than the usual flashiness of concertos.

“If all of the Beethoven concertos are unique, this one is the most unique,” Gesme said. “It’s because he’s always trying to re-create the wheel within his little world.”

After intermission, the symphony will present “Jubilee,” from Symphonic Sketches by George Whitefield Chadwick, whom a German critic once hailed as “the most important living Anglo-American composer” circa 1905. But as the decades marched on, Chadwick did not get continued attention, not even by those who were in a position to keep his name in circulation.

“People are like, ‘If I have the choice of playing Chadwick, which is a name nobody knows, or Dvorak, which is a name everybody knows, I think I’ll play the Dvorak,’” Gesme said.

There are a good many composers like Chadwick, Gesme said, whose works didn’t necessarily get continued play after their day but are being rediscovered today.

“There’s plenty that has been said (about Dvorak),” Gesme said. “And nothing has been said about these hundreds and hundreds of other composers that are deserving of being played.”

After “Jubilee,” the symphony will close the concert with the 1919 version of Igor Stravinsky’s dramatic “Firebird Suite.”

It’s the second of Stravinsky’s three arranged concert suites from “The Firebird” ballet. The first came in 1911, the third in 1946, Gesme explains in his concert notes.

“The second suite, which was re-orchestrated for a much smaller, conventional ensemble, is the version that is most frequently performed on concert programs today. Stravinsky later commented that his original orchestration was excessively large, calling for nearly 40 wind and percussion players — double the number required for the 1919 version.”

“It’s very cool. It’s very colorful,” Gesme said. “Eventually, Stravinsky becomes very, very radical as a composer. … This is kind of a transition moment for him, where it’s lots of very colorful, fanciful, interesting harmonies.”

Fall Concert performances will take place from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday. A number of complimentary tickets are also set aside for the public and are available at music shops and bookstores around Central Oregon, as well as at Will Call prior to the concert.

Tickets for the season are also free and mailed to the homes of those who contribute $60 or more to the Central Oregon Symphony. For more information, visit cosymphony.com.