Columbus Symphony Concludes the 2010-11 Season With The Three Bs
By: Gabrielle Sierra Apr. 01, 2011
Guest conductor Mei-Ann Chen will lead the Columbus Symphony in its final program of the 2010-11 classical season. Featuring guest cellist Nathaniel Rosen and guest violinist Axel Strauss, the program will include "the three Bs" of classical music-Bach (Ricercare No. 2 from Musical Offering), Beethoven (Symphony No. 3, "Eroica"), and Brahms (Double Concerto). WOSU's Christopher Purdy will hold a free, pre-concert lecture about the program for ticket holders one hour prior to each performance on the fourth floor of the Ohio Theatre's Galbreath Pavilion.
Newly appointed Music Director of both the Memphis Symphony Orchestra (September 2010) and the Chicago Sinfonietta (September 2011), Mei-Ann Chen is one of America's most exciting and promising young conductors. The first woman to win the Malko International Conductors Competition (2005), she recently concluded a highly successful tenure as Assistant Conductor of the Atlanta Symphony and is currently serving a one-year appointment as Assistant Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony. Both positions were part of her participation as a conducting fellow sponsored by the League of American Orchestras.
Nathaniel Rosen gained American recognition upon winning the 1977 International Naumburg Competition, and international stardom the following year when he became the first American cellist ever to win the Gold Medal at the Tchaikovsky International Competition. Since then, he has been the esteemed guest soloist with the world's foremost orchestras, including the New York, Los Angeles, and Czech philharmonics; the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Philadelphia, Minnesota, and Dresden State orchestras; l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande; and the London, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Dallas, Houston, and Vancouver symphonies.About guest violinst Axel Strauss
In 1998, violinist Axel Strauss became the first German artist ever to win the Naumburg Violin Award, and in the seasons since, he has been equally acclaimed for his virtuosity and his musical sensitivity. Residing in the US since 1996, Strauss maintains a busy performance schedule and serves as Professor of Violin at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He has been heard on concert stages throughout Europe since his recital debut in Hamburg at the age of 16. One year after his debut, Strauss won the silver medal at the Enescu Competition in Romania and performed the Tchaikovsky Concerto with the Bucharest Philharmonic. Strauss has been recognized with many other awards, including top prizes in the Bach, Wieniawski, and Kocian competitions.
Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period. His abilities as an organist were highly respected throughout Europe during his lifetime, but he was not widely acknowledged as a great composer until a revival of interest in his music in the first half of the 19th century. He is now generally regarded one of the main composers of the Baroque style, and as one of the greatest composers of all time. The Musical Offering is a collection of canons, fugues, and other pieces of music by Bach, all based on a single musical theme given to him by Frederick II of Prussia (Frederick the Great) to whom they are dedicated.About Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
German composer and pianist Johannes Brahms was one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader in the musical scene. Today, many of his works have become staples of modern concert repertoire. A categorical perfectionist, Brahms destroyed many of his own works and left several unpublished. The Double Concerto was his final work for orchestra. Composed in the summer of 1887 and then first performed on October 18, Brahms wrote it for cellist Robert Hausmann and his old but estranged friend, violinist Joseph Joachim. The concerto was, in part, a gesture of reconciliation towards Joachim, making use of the musical motif A-E-F, a permutation of F-A-E, which stood for a personal motto of Joachim, Frei aber einsam ("free but lonely"). About Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was a German composer and pianist. He is considered to have been the most crucial figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western classical music, and remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time. Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, also known as the Eroica (Italian for "heroic"), is a landmark musical work marking the full arrival of the composer's "middle-period," a series of unprecedented large scale works of emotional depth and structural rigor. The symphony is widely regarded as a mature expression of the Classical style of the late eighteenth century that also exhibits defining features of the Romantic style that would hold sway in the nineteenth century. It was completed in August 1804, and first performed April 7, 1805, with Beethoven conducting.www.columbussymphony.com
Videos
