Peabody performance finds 'Anxiety'

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - A great musical score never loses its appeal. At least that’s the philosophy of Benjamin Pasternak, pianist and faculty artist at the Peabody Conservatory. Tonight he will perform Leonard Bernstein’s immortal “Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety.”

“One of the reasons these [pieces] stay in the repertoire is their lasting value,” Pasternak said. “Studying them stays rewarding and performing them is a new experience each time, like a movie you want to see again and again.”

Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Peabody Distinguished Visiting Artist Marin Alsop will be the evening’s guest conductor of the Peabody Symphony Orchestra (PSO) whose program also includes “Short Ride in a Fast Machine” by John Adams and “Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47” by Dmitri Shostakovich.

All three of the program’s compositions are 20th century pieces, the composers known personally to Pasternak.

“I’ve either met them all myself or met people who’ve worked with them,” Pasternak continued. “We are a living example of how music is handed down from one performer to another.

As proof of this statement, he relates how a teacher of his had a teacher who had a teacher whose teacher was Beethoven.

“There were only three famous musicians between myself and Beethoven,” he quipped.

And only three generations between the German master and “Age of Anxiety”, a jazz-influenced work from the 1940s that Leonard Bernstein based on the W.H. Auden poem of the same name.

“All three of these works are masterpieces,” said student and PSO concertmaster Katarzyna Bryla. “I love them all. Shostakovich is a classic.”

And while she considers the Adams piece rhythmically complicated, she’s thrilled to have Marin Alsop at the podium guiding them through this difficult piece.

“Marin is amazing,” Bryla added. She shows such discipline and respect for the composer [and] has a way of conducting that brings us all together as an ensemble.”

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Marin Alsop Leads the Peabody Symphony Orchestra

VENUE: Peabody Institute, Miriam A Friedberg Concert Hall

17 East Mount Vernon Place, Baltimore

WHEN: 8 tonight

TICKETS.: Admission $15

INFO.: 410-659-8100, Ext. 2.