Our opening program of the season features Denver treasure, guitarist Neil Haverstick. Born and raised in East St. Louis and steeped in the blues, Neil’s journeys have recently taken him to Prague, Czechoslovakia and New York City, where he wows everyone with his microtonal guitar improvisations. Our concert features a new work based on material by Neil and arranged by Music Director Thomas A. Blomster. The work is a concerto entitled Spider for microtonal guitar, strings, and percussion, and may be the first time that anyone has composed a work for orchestral strings in a 19 tone microtonal scale. Much of the concerto features Neil improvising over the orchestra parts, not much different from the days of J. S. Bach and Mozart, who also frequently improvised. Continuing that tradition, we are performing J. S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto #3 and Neil will improvise the second movement, as it was done in Bach’s day. The final work on our program is Bela Bartok’s Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celeste, one of the compositional monuments of the last century. This work is a favorite of both Haverstick and Blomster; especially it’s use of folk tunes, modal/bluesy scales, and unusual sounds.