Susan Waterfall’s biographical film on Igor Stravinsky provides an ideal prologue to the Festival’s programming this year. Experience the fascinating life of the greatest composer of the 20th century, including excerpts from 25 of his works, along with compelling images and photographs. A Q&A will follow the screening.
The final concert will open with Ad Matrem, Henryk Gorecki’s sacred work for soprano, mixed chorus, and orchestra. Based on the text of the 13th century hymn, Stabat Mater Dolorosa, this piece is almost a symphonic poem. Lux Aeterna, by Morten Lauridsen, is a choral work fashioned on texts from several different Latin sources, including …
Festival Orchestra with guest conductor Francesco Lecce-Chong and soloist Julian Rhee. “Igor on My Mind,” Allan Pollack’s fun-loving, energetic and rhythmic piece, impishly steals motifs straight out of Igor Stravinsky’s orchestral music. Then the real Stravinsky will be heard in the Violin Concerto in D, a neoclassical piece in four movements, written in the summer …
The musicians will reveal surprising new sides to Stravinsky through the years in these intimate concerts. Alexander Katsman will accompany mezzo-soprano Silvie Jensen in Le Faune, a songs composed by Stravinsky during his honeymoon. Jensen will be joined a bit later by Alexander on “Cradle Songs for a Cat.” Susan and Julian Waterfall Pollack will …
L’histoire du soldat shows off Stravinsky’s familiarity with a wide range of musical styles: pasodoble, tango, waltz, ragtime, klezmer, and even Luther’s Ein Feste Burg. Concerto in E-flat (“Dumbarton Oaks”) is one of Stravinsky’s two chamber concertos. Stravinsky’s Octet for Wind Instruments is scored for an unusual combination of woodwind and brass. Completed in 1923, …
American pianist Rachel Breen’s performances have been described as “truly show-stopping” (Gramophone UK) and having “a beautiful piano sound and original detail.” She has enjoyed an active and successful competition career and has performed and taught masterclasses around the world. In the first half of this concert Breen will perform a set of ten etudes …
In the opening classical concert, Allan Pollack will lead the musicians in Igor Stravinsky’s 1922 Pulcinella Suite, one of the ballets commissioned by Diaghilev. We’ll catch our breaths when the orchestra and pianist James D’León transport us to Nights in the Gardens of Spain, Manuel de Falla’s set of nocturnes for piano and orchestra. The …