EDMONDS, Washington (STPNS) -- The Cascade Symphony Orchestra opened its 48th season with a stellar performance of “The Planets,” by Gustav Holst, as well as the “Rakoczy March” by Berlioz.

New principal clarinet player Kevin Fay also got the chance to make his debut with the well-known opening of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”

The concert, held at the Edmonds Center for the Arts, was well attended and also featured a pre-concert reception, featuring an art exhibit titled “The Sight of Music” by Emanuel and Lenore Vardi.



The Vardis, both internationally recognized musical artists, also showed their incredible skills with two-dimensional art.

The halls of the upper level of Edmonds Center for the Arts were filled with large, bright, intensely colored oil, acrylic and mixed media paintings of musicians and musical instruments.

Emanuel and Lenore Vardi know those subjects well; their perspective is from the inside out.

Emanuel has long been known as the world’s leading viola soloist. His two dimensional work has also gained him accolades.

His “Abstract of a Violin” won first prize at the Rappalo International Art Competition in 1951, and his “White on White, Composition No.3” was picked by the New York Times as a Best in Show.

Lenore Vardi has been lauded as “a violinist of amazing elegance and musicianship… a natural performer” by the New York Post.  Her paintings show a fascination with architectural and geometric form, mixed with a heavy influence of the Far East, combining elements of simplicity, luminosity and transparency to portray the delicacy and beauty of musical instruments.

A painting by Emanuel Vardi, titled “Rhapsody in Blue” was done especially for the opening of the Cascade Symphony opening, in honor of that composition being played.

Emanuel has a unique knowledge of the piece.

“I was playing in the Paul Whiteman Orchestra when he commissioned that piece from George Gershwin,” Vardi said. “When Whiteman got it, he complained it was too long, that he couldn’t use it. It later became his signature piece.

The art by Lenore and Emanuel Vardi will show in the ECA through December.