Childress Conducts Elgar

Pre-Concert Chat at 5:45 PM Lawn Paver Bar Bohdana Frolyak Let There Be Light Edward Elgar Enigma Variations, Op. 36 Stephanie Childress returns to the podium to lead a concert featuring Elgar’s Enigma Variations. His best-known work, it starts off with a pensive four-note melody which Elgar then weaves into 14 variations. In each variation, he imagines how one of 13 of his friends might turn the theme into a different melody inspired in some way by their personality. The first variation is based on his wife, Alice, and the 14th and final variation is Elgar’s own. It’s an orchestral masterpiece. Alasdair’s take on the program: As Brits, Stephanie Childress and I grew up with Elgar’s Enigma Variations as an indispensable part of our cultural heritage—it contains the entire range of human experience in one half hour!