Thierry Fischer Leads Utah Symphony in Two Weekends of Concerts

Music Director Thierry Fischer returns to Abravanel Hall to continue the Utah Symphony's 2016-17 season with Tchaikovsky's famous first piano concerto, performed by award-winning guest artist Alexander Gavrylyuk, and Dvo?ák's 'New World Symphony' as part of the O.C. Tanner Company Masterworks Series. The orchestra also continues with symphony cycles devoted to Brahms and Ives, with performances of Ives' symphonies one and three over two weekends. Tickets start at $21 and can be purchased at www.utahsymphony.org or by calling (801) 533-6683.

On November 4 and 5 the Utah Symphony led by Music Director Thierry Fischer will commence this season's cycle of symphonies by Charles Ives at 7:30 PM in Abravanel Hall. The orchestra will also perform Haydn's crisp and impressive Symphony No. 7 to open the concert and conclude with Dvo?ák's most beloved composition, the 'New World Symphony,' featuring what many consider to be one of the most beautiful melodies in all of classical music.

Despite Dvo?ák's instant success at the symphony's premiere in Carnegie Hall in 1893, Symphony No. 9 was not an "American" symphony but rather a symphony "from the New World." During his stay in New York City from 1892 to 1895 he discovered an abundance of diverse ethnic musical sources lying fallow in America and a potentially magnificent classical tradition waiting to be born. Hearing the richness of what we now call "roots music," he was baffled by the American intelligentsia's dismissal of folk music as primitive and said, "These can be the foundation of a serious and original school of composition...in the United States." Drawing upon Native American songs and African-American spirituals, the 'New World' symphony broadly captures the spirit of both traditions. The emphasis on brasses and woodwinds as opposed to strings gives the symphony a fresh sound that separates it from both European and American idioms of the time.

Also on the repertoire for November 4 and 5 is Haydn's Symphony No. 7, "Noon," composed around 1761. The symphony's crisp, well-organized structure makes it similar to the Baroque era's concerto grosso style, which featured the contrasting movements and interplay between a small group of solo instruments and the full orchestra that gave rise to the Classical symphonic form. The symphony's nick name, "Noon," does not particularly denote the sentiments of a blazing sun at its zenith. But the emphatic and stately opening with a ceremonial march leaves the audience feeling well-oriented and enlivened as one might on a clear day. In the finale of the lively fourth movement, the audience is treated to an exciting instrumental display from every section of the orchestra.

Utah Symphony's performance cycle of Charles Ives' symphonies will commence with Symphony No.1, joining Brahms and Beethoven as three complete composer cycles programmed during the 2016-17 Masterworks season. Explore the symphonic world of American composer (and life-insurance salesman) Charles Ives (1874-1954), who is known for synthesizing ideas from American popular music with European religious and art music. Symphony No. 1 combines themes from famous composers including Dvo?ák himself. Thierry Fischer conducts all four of his symphonies this season.

On November 11 and 12, at 7:30 PM in Abravanel Hall, the Utah Symphony is proud to welcome internationally-acclaimed guest artist Alexander Gavrylyuk in his Utah Symphony debut, performing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the orchestra led by Music Director Thierry Fischer. This rousing performance combines the courage and conviction of Brahms' Symphony No. 3 along with the grand opening chords and exuberant outbursts of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. In addition to the continuation of the Brahms' symphony cycle, Fischer resumes the Ives symphony cycle with Ives' Symphony No. 3, "The Camp Meeting," for which Ives won the Pulitzer Prize in 1947.

Audiences can expect to hear a characteristically Romantic era spirit of heroic rebellion in Tchaikovsky'sConcerto No. 1 for piano and orchestra. It bursts upon us with an opening that is explosive and iconic: a moment of brassy orchestral fanfare introducing thunderous piano chords grouped in threes. They are played in unison with both hands as they move in bold, multi-octave leaps up the keyboard. From soloist Alexander Gavrylyuk, the audience will hear a modern-day interpreter who puts his personal stamp on one of the great concertos of the piano repertory.

Born in 1984, Alexander Gavrylyuk began his piano studies at the age of seven and gave his first concerto performance when he was nine years old. He has won many prestigious awards including First Prize and Gold Medal at the 1999 Horowitz International Piano Competition, First Prize at the Hamamatsu InternationalPiano Competition in Japan in 2000, where the Japanese press lauded him as the "most talented 16 year-old pianist of the second half of the 20th Century," and both the coveted Gold Medal as well as the award for Best Performance of a Classical Concerto at the internationally renowned Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Masters Competition. He is now increasingly in demand by orchestras and conductors for his noble and compelling interpretations. He has appeared with, among others, the Philharmonic Orchestras of New York, Los Angeles, Warsaw, Moscow, Israel and Rotterdam as well as the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony, Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, the Netherlands Philharmonic, San Antonio Symphony, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Brussels Philharmonic, the Vancouver Symphony and the National Autonomous University of Mexico's Philharmonic Orchestra.

A pre-concert lecture, free to all ticket holders, will take place at all Masterworks Series performances in Abravanel Hall's 1st Tier Room 45 minutes prior to the performance.