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Season begins for the Curtis Symphony Orchestra
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Yo-Yo Ma, Ranjbaran, and Dutoit; from a performance in Saratoga
One of the most respected student ensembles in the country, the Curtis Symphony Orchestra is a composed of over 100 young musicians currently attending Curtis. Their 2009-2010 season begins with a powerful, varied program consisting of modernist works and the regional debut of a violin concerto by the respected Iranian composer Behjad Ranjbaran.
The first piece on the program will be Richard Strauss' Don Juan, a tone poem that would be the composer's first foray among several in the genre. It is based on a poem by Lenau and concerns the age-old debauching character, whose fixation on a female ideal leads him inexorably on a wayward search for love, stopping on his way to find orgiastic delight in carnal pleasures and eventual tragedy.
The highlight of the evening's concert, Ranjbaran's Violin Concerto, is a technically polished showcase for soloist and Curtis alumni Elissa Lee Koljonen. Blending Middle Eastern tones with Western sensibilities, the concerto is a furtherance of Ranjbaran's belief in the melding of cultural traditions. Conductor JoAnn Falletta (a longtime friend of the composer who has commissioned several of his works and recorded his daunting Persian Trilogy) will be leading the orchestra.
Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, an audience favorite, will complete the concert. Based on The Book of the Thousand and One Nights, this symphonic suite offers a firmly Russian compositional method with ravishing, exotic ornamentation.
The performance, the first of three in the series, will take place on Tuesday, October 27th in Verizon Hall at 8PM. Tickets range from $5 to $36. For information visit the Kimmel Center Box Office or Ticket Philadelphia, at (215) 893-1999. Tickets can also be found at ticketphiladelphia.org.
