Stephen Hough to Play with North Carolina Symphony, 2/23

North Carolina Symphony Music Director Grant Llewellyn welcomes one of the world's most celebrated pianists to North Carolina later this month. At the same time, he is reacquainted with an old friend.

Award-winning English pianist Stephen Hough, a one-time classmate of Llewellyn's at Chetham's School of Music in Manchester, England, joins the North Carolina Symphony for "Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2."

The performances begin at Kenan Auditorium, on the campus of UNC-Wilmington, on Thursday, Feb. 23. Two weekend concerts follow in downtown Raleigh's Meymandi Concert Hall, Friday and Saturday, Feb. 24-25. All three performances begin at 8:00 p.m.

Widely regarded as one of the most important and distinctive pianists of his generation, Hough has been awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, nicknamed the Genius Grants, as well as Northwestern University's Jean Gimbel Lane Prize and the Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist Award. He has appeared with most major American and European orchestras, including a recent performance with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle that was televised worldwide.

Complementing Hough's appearance is a program of works by musical luminaries, most notably music's other consummate piano virtuoso, Franz Liszt. The Symphony opens the concert with Liszt's feisty Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, based on the Hungarian national dance, the Czardas.

The orchestra also performs Liszt's passionate tone poem Mazeppa, a colorful depiction of the ordeals endured by the legendary military leader, complete with a breakneck horse ride. The normally reserved French composer Claude Debussy praised the piece's fervor: "The fire and abandon which Liszt's genius frequently attain are much preferable to white-gloved perfection."

Also included in the evening are two operatic highlights. The patriotic Rákóczy March from Hector Berlioz's opera The Damnation of Faust once led George Bernard Shaw to say that he would "charge out and capture Trafalgar Square single-handed" if it lasted one minute more. The Symphony follows it with Wagner's Prelude to Act I of Lohengrin, a charming and poetic vision of angels descending from heaven.

Regular tickets to the Duke Medicine Classical Series Raleigh performances of "Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2" on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 24-25 range from $40 to $70, with $40 tickets for seniors.

Regular tickets to the Wilmington Series performance on Thursday, Feb. 23 range from $40 to $60.

Students receive $10 tickets in both venues.

For tickets, visit the North Carolina Symphony website at www.ncsymphony.org or call North Carolina Symphony Audience Services at 919.733.2750 or toll free 877.627.6724.