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Classics SERIES

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All concerts are performed at 8 pm in Belk Theater, Blumenthal Performing Arts Center

Don't miss "Musically Speaking," the Symphony's informative and engaging pre-concert events at 7 p.m. each concert evening.

Ticket Office - 704.972.2000

RUSSIAN SPECTACULAR
Fri Mar 26 | Sat Mar 27, 2010

Christof Perick, conducting
Heidi Meier, soprano

GLINKA Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla
GLIÈRE Concerto for Coloratura Soprano
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 6 “Pathétique”

The stunning soprano Heidi Meier returns to wow Charlotte audiences with the rarely heard Concerto for Coloratura Soprano, in an all-Russian program conducted by Christof Perick. Tchaikovsky’s passionate and brooding final Symphony, written in the composer’s last year, brings the concert to a dramatic conclusion.

BEETHOVEN’S “ODE TO JOY”
Thu Apr 22 | Fri Apr 23 | Sat Apr 24, 2010

Christof Perick, conducting
Heidi Meier, soprano
Frances Pappas, mezzo-soprano
Tilman Lichdi, tenor
Jochen Kupfer, baritone
Oratorio Singers of Charlotte

BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 9 “Choral”

The Symphony pulls out all the stops to honor Christof Perick in his final concert as Music Director. A celebration of joy, peace, and brotherhood, Beethoven’s magnificent Ninth Symphony is the very work with which Maestro Perick began his tenure more than nine years ago, conducting a moving performance of the masterpiece just ten days after the tragic events of September 11, 2001.

BEETHOVEN’S “EMPEROR”
Fri Sep 11 | Sat Sep 12, 2009
Pre-concert talk @ 7 pm

Larry Rachleff, conducting
Yuja Wang, piano

BERLIOZ Le corsaire
COPLAND Appalachian Spring: Suite
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 5, “Emperor”

“To listen to her in action is to re-examine whatever assumptions you may have had about how well the piano can actually be played,” writes The San Francisco Chronicle about Yuga Wang. The brilliant 22-year-old Chinese pianist performs Beethoven’s final and most famous piano concerto – the “Emperor.” Larry Rachleff, Music Director of the Rhode Island Philharmonic, conducts the Symphony’s 78th season opener.

www.yujawang.com

http://www.seldycramerartists.com/bio_rachleff.html

Yuja Wang plays the Flight of the Bumble-Bee (Vol du Bourdon)

House of Flying Fingers

SHOSTAKOVICH’S NINTH
Fri Sep 25 | Sat Sept 26, 2009

James Feddeck, conducting
Karen Gomyo, violin

BORODIN Prince Igor Overture
BRUCH Violin Concerto No. 1
MUSSORGSKY Khovantchina: Introduction
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 9

Recently appointed Assistant Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, James Feddeck conducts an evening of soul-stirring Russian music in the second program of the Classics series. The rousing overture from Borodin’s opera, Prince Igor, renowned for its “Polovtsian Dances,” opens the concert. Subtitled “Dawn on the Moscow River,” the introduction to Mussorgsky’s opera, Khovantchina, depicts the awakening of the capital city. Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony, composed at the end of World War II, is joyous and lighthearted – one of the composer’s shortest symphonies.

The young Canadian, Karen Gomyo, is fast becoming one of the most sought-after solo violinists. Winner of the 2008 Avery Fisher Career Grant, she performs the popular Bruch Violin Concerto on a 1703 Stradivarius.

 http://www.seldycramerartists.com/bio_gomyo.html

http://www.opus3artists.com/artists/james-feddeck/?bio=true

RODRIGO GUITAR CONCERTO
Fri Oct 9 | Sat Oct 10, 2009

Chelsea Tipton, II, conducting
Jason Vieaux, guitar

BERNSTEIN Three Dances from On the Town
RODRIGO Concierto de Aranjuez
GERSHWIN Porgy and Bess: Symphonic Picture

From the bustling Big Apple to sunny Spain, the music of the third Classics concert brings to vibrant life the sounds and sights of three fascinating locations. Bernstein’s dances from On the Town (the 1949 film starred Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra) celebrate fancy-free sailors on leave in “New York, New York.” Joaquin Rodrigo’s famous guitar concerto depicts the beautiful gardens at the royal palace in the Spanish town of Aranjuez. And Gershwin’s orchestral suite from Porgy and Bess portrays a sultry South Carolina.

Greensboro native Chelsea Tipton II, who conducted the Charlotte Symphony’s 2009 “Daybreak of Freedom” concert, is the Music Director of the Symphony of Southeast Texas. Gramophone magazine places Jason Vieaux “among the elite of today’s classical guitarists.”

www.chelseatipton.com

http://www.jasonvieaux.com/

BACH B MINOR MASS
Fri Nov 6 | Sat Nov 7, 2009

Scott Allen Jarrett, conducting
Kendra Colton, soprano
Christina Pier, soprano
Gigi Mitchell-Velasco, mezzo-soprano
Michael Slattery, tenor
Richard Zeller, baritone
Oratorio Singers of Charlotte

BACH Mass in B-minor

Considered one of the supreme achievements of Bach’s career and, in fact, one of the finest creations of Western civilization, Bach’s Mass in B Minor was composed over a period of two decades. A magnificent musical setting of the traditional Roman Catholic liturgy, sung in Latin, the Mass is B Minor has 27 sections – solo arias, duets, and choruses for as many as eight parts.

BEETHOVEN’S “EROICA”
Fri Nov 20 | Sat Nov 21, 2009

Christof Perick, conducting
Helen Nightengale, violin
Lynn Harrell, cello
Joanne Pearce Martin, piano

BEETHOVEN Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 3, “Eroica”

***PLUS a special "Musically Speaking," featuring members of the Charlotte Symphony Youth Orchestra performing the "Scherzo" from Beethoven's "Archduke" Trio and special guest speaker Dr. Robert Whalen, McMahon Professor of History, Queens University of Charlotte, on "Napoleon, Beethoven, and the Zen of the 'Eroica.'" 7 p.m. in the Stage Door Theater, entrance on College Street.*** 

Originally conceived as a tribute to Napoleon Bonaparte and the ideals of the French Revolution, Beethoven’s heroic Third Symphony was as revolutionary as the times in which it was composed. Its four movements explore the full gamut of human emotion, from fear to valor and misery to joy. A celebration of public heroism, the “Eroica” is also a meditation on the private courage with which Beethoven would confront his deafness.

Beethoven composed the rarely performed Triple Concerto in 1803, the same year in which he began work on the Third Symphony. In contrast to the radical symphony, the concerto is almost aristocratic in its refinement.

Radio Spot

http://lynnharrell.com/

Explore the “Eroica”

VIVALDI’S “FOUR SEASONS”
Fri Jan 8 | Sat Jan 9, 2010

Michael Christie, conducting
Calin Ovidiu Lupanu, violin

VIVALDI The Four Seasons
BACH Fantasia and Fugue
MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 4, “Italian”

Led by Michael Christie, Music Director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the Phoenix Symphony, the CSO starts the New Year with some of the most famous, most beloved pieces of the Baroque repertoire. Vivaldi’s four brief violin concertos bring the beauty of nature into the concert hall as they musically evoke the seasons of the year. Bach’s Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, composed originally for organ, was later transcribed for orchestra by British Romantic composer Edward Elgar.

Written more than a century after “The Four Seasons,” Mendelssohn’s Fourth Symphony celebrates the warmth and romance of Italy, where the composer found “the supreme joy in life.” Mendelssohn wrote to his sister from Rome, “The ‘Italian’ symphony is making great progress. It will be the jolliest piece I have ever done…”

Program Notes

Calin Lupanu     http://www.michaelchristieonline.com

CHRISTOPHER WARREN-GREEN CONDUCTS RACHMANINOFF
Fri Feb 12 | Sat Feb 13, 2010

Christopher Warren-Green, conducting
Oratorio Singers of Charlotte

VERDI Overture to La forza del destino
BORODIN Polovtsian Dances
RACHMANINOFF Symphony No. 2

Music Director Designate Christopher Warren-Green comes to town a few months early to lead the orchestra and Oratorio Singers in a sneak preview of the Symphony’s future. A former violinist, Warren-Green is Music Director of the London Chamber Orchestra. He has recorded extensively for BMG, Philips, Virgin, Chandos, EMI, and Deutsche Grammophon and frequently conducts at Buckingham Palace. Warren-Green becomes Music Director of the CSO in September 2010. In this program, his third appearance with the Symphony, operatic grandeur is followed by Rachmaninoff’s sweeping Second Symphony, a work of great lyrical beauty.

Join The Charlotte Observer's Lawrence Toppman as he interviews Christopher Warren-Green in "Musically Speaking" at 7 pm!

Program Notes   |   Christopher Warren-Green's bio

Watch Warren-Green on YouTube!

Mozart Piano Concerto
Fri Mar 5 | Sat Mar 6, 2010

Christof Perick, conducting
Shai Wosner, piano

BRAHMS Variations on a Theme of Joseph Haydn
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 22
BLACHER Orchestra Variations
STRAUSS Der Rosenkavalier Waltzes

Variety is the spice of this program led by Christof Perick. Brahms’s set of orchestral variations, composed on a theme that is, as it turns out, not by Haydn after all, was the composer’s first great orchestral success. It established a genre – the independent orchestral variations – that Boris Blacher would delve into in 1947 with the famous theme from Paganini’s 24th Caprice, a tune explored by some 30 different composers since its completion in 1817. Israel native and Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient Shai Wosner performs Mozart’s beautiful piano concerto, and the program ends with Strauss’s 1944 Der Rosenkavalier waltzes.

http://shaiwosner.com/

Program Notes

Pre-concert festival @ 6:30p.m.
Hosted by the Charlotte Symphony and the Alemannia Society
Belk Theater Lobbies