Copious Notes

Scott Terrell leads a rehearsal of the Lexington Philharmoinic Orchestra before the October 2008 audition concert that ultimately won him the job. Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.

After Scott Terrell was named the new music director of the Lexington Philharmonic, most people, even the orchestra staff, figured the next time we’d see him would be in September for a gala season opener.

But Terrell had different ideas.

The conductor will be on the podium next weekend as the Philharmonic plays its annual Fourth of July concerts in Lexington Friday Night at Transylvania University and Versailles Saturday night at Woodford County Park.

“I was here, I was available, and it’s a big community event,” Terrell said from his Lexington home. “I thought it was an appropriate way to introduce myself.”

It’s also going to be a chance for Terrell to introduce a bit of his musical sensibility.

“There are going to be the traditional things that have always been there,” Terrell says. “But we’re also going to look at the breadth of American music, and what that means.”

What that means in this concert is we will hear some classic American tunes such as the Shaker melody, Simple Gifts; we’ll hear classic movie themes such as Henry Mancini’s for The Pink Panther and Lalo Schifrin’s Mission: Impossible theme; we’ll hear classic show tunes from Lerner and Lowe and standards from Cole Porter.

“While it is patriotic in parts, the broader scope is Americana,” Terrell says.

There will be numerous patriotic concert standbys, including the Star-Spangled Banner, My Old Kentucky Home and Stars and Stripes Forever.

But Terrell said he saw the concerts as chances to, “reshape that program, and usher in a new era.”

Thus far, Terrell says he’s received a good reaction from people in the orchestra and concert presenters who have seen the program.

Terrell has been putting the program together at the same time he has been moving to Lexington from Charleston, S.C., where he lived as resident conductor of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra.

He has also been solidifying the program for the Philharmonic’s upcoming 2009-10 season. Some noteworthy additions include:

■ Irish tenor Ronan Tynan in an Oct. 10 concert that will be part of the Alltech Fortnight Festival.

■ Acclaimed violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg in an April 17 concert to benefit UK HealthCare.

Information on those concerts and all upcoming Philharmonic events will be available at the Fourth concerts, which are some of the Philharmonic’s biggest events of the year.

“I wanted to do it, and that’s the bottom line,” Terrell said of the concerts. “It’s too much fun and too much of a community event not to take part.”

The Lexington Philharmonic’s new music director, Scott Terrell, is going to start his tenure with more marquee names on the season schedule than the orchestra has had in quite a while. In addition to Evelyn Glennie, probably the best-known classical solo percussionist in the world Sept. 25, the Phil will also present:

Ronan Tynan.

Irish tenor Ronan Tynan in a concert that will be part of the Alltech Fortnight Festival Oct. 10. Tynan came to fame as one of the Three Irish Tenors and has been a ubiquitous presence at New York Yankees games in the past decade singing the full version of God Bless America. Terrell says this concert will probably tell him a lot about possible directions in which to take a revived Philharmonic Pops season.

World-renowned violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg will join the orchestra for an April 17 concert benefitting UK HealthCare. Terrell says Sonnenberg will be playing Astor Piazolla’s take on The Four Seasons.

Nadja Salerno Sonnenberg. Photo by Grant Leighton.

The violinist added for the Feb. 12 Masterclassics concert is also a bit of a get: Arnaud Sussmann, who won a prestigious Avery Fisher career grant in April along with Alessio Bax, who is the pianist with the UBS Chamber Music Festival of Lexington, Aug. 26-30.

Also added to the full schedule, which will be released next week, are family concerts on Oct. 25 (a Youth Arts concert that will feature members of the Central Kentucky Youth Orchestras playing with the Phil and other young artists) and Dec. 13, which will bring Paragon Music Theatre director Ryan Shirar back to the Philharmonic podium.