Esa Pekka Salonen Leads Two Weeks Of Concerts At Chicago Symphony

Conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) in two subscription concert programs (March 2-11), recognizing Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer John Adams on the occasion of his 70th Birthday this year. The first program (March 2, 4, & 7) includes Adams' Scheherazade.2 with violinist Leila Josefowicz as soloist, Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and Stravinsky's landmark work The Rite of Spring. The second program (March 9-11) includes a performance of Adams' 1995 work Slonimsky's Earbox, as well as Stravinsky's Petrushka and the world premiere of Salonen's Cello Concerto with Yo-Yo Ma as soloist.

Salonen's first program (March 2, 4, & 7) opens with Debussy's dreamlike symphonic poem Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, which was inspired by the poem of the same name by French symbolist Stéphane Mallarmé. The program continues with John Adams' Scheherazade.2 (2014-15). The 40-minute dramatic symphony for violin and orchestra evokes the story of the clever princess Scheherazade whose nightly stories were so engrossing that her murderous husband spared her life. In Adams' retelling, a wise female character with grit and personal power-played by the violin-defies her pursuers, stands trial, and escapes to sanctuary. Adams wrote the concerto expressly for Josefowicz, whose empowered energy was well-matched to the character of a mythic modern storyteller. Josefowicz performed the world premiere of Scheherazade.2 with the New York Philharmonic and Alan Gilbert in March 2015. The program concludes with Stravinsky's iconic ballet score, The Rite of Spring, a work which incited a riot at its controversial premiere.

Salonen's second program (March 9-11), anchored by his own Cello Concerto, opens with Adams' 1995 work Slonimsky's Earbox. In this seminal work, Adams pays tribute to Nicholas Slonimsky, a personal friend and a witty scholar whose Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns inspired Adams for decades. The program concludes with Stravinsky's brash and colorful score for the ballet Petrushka.

As the focal point of the program, Salonen conducts the world premiere of his Cello Concerto with CSO Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Yo-Yo Ma as soloist. Written for Ma, Salonen notes "It has been a very great pleasure and honor to write a concerto for one of the most unique life-givers and communicators of our time, Yo-Yo Ma. It has been inspiring to know that his technique knows no limits. Perhaps more importantly: nor does his imagination."

Salonen's new concerto includes scoring for electronics and the music, in his words, emerges "almost like consciousness developing from clouds of dust." Other episodes in the concerto cast the cello as a comet, trailed by the instruments of the orchestra and later find the Orchestra and soloist in a series of accelerandi, with music that Salonen calls "dance-like" and features a rhythmic pattern that starts in the congas and bongos and returns throughout the piece. The main movement includes what Salonen describes as "solo cello arches...looped to create harmony from single lines." Virtuosic solo passages eventually give way to the cello's gradual ascent to the highest pitches in its range.

Esa-Pekka Salonen's Cello Concerto is co-commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Barbican Centre, London, and Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg.

The co-commission by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Riccardo Muti, Music Director, is generously supported by the Mrs. Harold C. Smith Fund for New Music.

Tickets for all CSOA-presented concerts can be purchased by phone at 800?223?7114 or 312-294?3000; online at cso.org, or at the Symphony Center box office: 220 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60604.

Discounted student tickets for select concerts can be purchased, subject to availability, online in advance or at the box office on the day of the concert. For group rates, please call 312-294-3040.

Artists, programs and prices are subject to change.

The March 2, 4 & 7 performances are generously sponsored by the Zell Family Foundation.

The March 9, 10 and 11 performances are generously sponsored by an anonymous donor.

CSO Tuesday series concerts are sponsored by United Airlines.

(Photo Credit: CSO)