Royal Fireworks Concert A Symphony For The E

The Royal Fireworks Concert will be Sunday at 9 p.m. at the Riverfront Park Floating Stage. Admission is free.

“This year’s concert will have twice the amount of fireworks we had last year,” says David Dutton, conductor of the concert. Dutton and harpsichordist Beverly Biggs are the founders and co-directors of Allegro and the Royal Fireworks Concerts.

For the past 18 years, Allegro has staged the Royal Fireworks Concert at Riverfront Park, an event that attracts up to 50,000 people to the steps of the Spokane Opera House and to the Clock Tower Meadow in Riverfront Park.

Dutton will conduct the 62-member Royal Band in a program that includes works by 17th- and 18th-century composers Louis Couperin, Johann Ernst Altenburg and George Frideric Handel along with music from the Lew Wallace silent film classic “Ben Hur” and a new fanfare by Spokane composer William Berry.

The Royal Band is made up of oboes, English horns, bassoons, trumpets, French horns and percussion.

In addition to “The Musick for the Royal Fireworks” (to use Handel’s spelling), the band Sunday will also play the composer’s “Airs for the Changing of the Guard at St. James” and parts of his “Water Music.”

Plan to arrive early and enjoy an early evening picnic before the music begins at sunset.

, DataTimes