American Symphony Orchestra Performs HOLLOW VICTORY: Jews In Soviet Russia After The World War at Carnegie Hall

Leon Botstein will lead the American Symphony Orchestra in Hollow Victory: Jews in Soviet Russia After the World War, the third installment in the ASO's four-concert Vanguard series on Sunday, January 28, at 2 PM at Carnegie Hall. The program continues the season's political focus by examining the music composers have created under various types of leadership, in this case Stalin's dictatorship and anti-Semitic rule.

Maestro Botstein provides the essential musical context for each of the series' presentations in lively, 30-minute Conductor's Notes Q&A sessions. These discussions, popular learning opportunities for concert-goers and music connoisseurs alike, begin one hour before each concert and are free for all ticket holders.

The theme of the program shows the survival of a vibrant and active Jewish musical culture despite its brutal suppression in the late 1940s in Soviet Russia. A good friend of Shostakovich, Mieczysaw Weinberg composed Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes in 1949 before his arrest in 1953 during the height of Stalin's anti-Jewish campaign. Based on his childhood memories of the music from his parents' regional homeland, the work follows the Soviet preference for folk-based music. His fifth symphony, on the other hand, was composed in 1962 after his release from prison upon Stalin's death, and was inspired by the 1961 premiere public performance of Shostakovich's once-suppressed fourth symphony written several decades previously. Weinberg risked condemnation by the state in his novel exploration of the symphonic form in the "formalist" work.

The last work on the concert, Rothschild's Violin, began as a one-act opera by Veniamin Fleishman, Shostakovich's favorite student at the Leningrad Conservatory, who was also Jewish, and is based on Chekhov's short story "Rothschild's Violin." However, Fleishman was sadly killed in the war before its completion. Shostakovich took it upon himself to complete the project in 1944, although due to the Jewish subject matter, the music was not performed until 1960. A tribute to friendship, the works of this program show Shostakovich's loyalty and absence of prejudice.

Tickets, priced at $25 / $30 / $40 / $55, are available at carnegiehall.org, CarnegieCharge at 212.247.7800 or the Carnegie Hall box office at 57th St and 7th Ave.

The next concert in the Vanguard series is Intolerance, featuring Italian Luigi Nono's stand against dictatorship through his one-act opera Intolleranza on March 1, 2018 at Carnegie Hall.

The American Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1962 by Leopold Stokowski with a mission of making orchestral music accessible and affordable for everyone. Music Director Leon Botstein expanded that mission when he joined the ASO in 1992, creating thematic concerts that explore music from the perspective of the visual arts, literature, religion, and history, and reviving rarely-performed works audiences would otherwise seldom hear performed live. The Orchestra has made several tours of Asia and Europe, and performed in countless benefits for organizations including the Jerusalem Foundation and PBS. Many of the world's most accomplished soloists have performed with the ASO, including Yo-Yo Ma, Deborah Voigt, and Sarah Chang. The Orchestra has released several recordings on the Telarc, New World, Bridge, Koch, and Vanguard labels, and numerous live performances are also available for digital download. In many cases, these are the only recordings of some of the rare works that have been rediscovered in ASO performances.

The ASO's recent online-only issue of Weber's Euryanthe, recorded at the 2014 Bard Music Festival, was reviewed by the Wall Street Journal as "Musically rich, lyrical and expansive." Leon Botstein Leon Botstein has been music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra since 1992. He is also music director of The Orchestra Now, an innovative training orchestra composed of top musicians from around the world. He is co-artistic director of Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival, which take place at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, where he has been president since 1975. He is also conductor laureate of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, where he served as music director from 2003-11. This year he assumes artistic directorship of Austria's Grafenegg Academy and Campus. Mr. Botstein also has an active career as a guest conductor with orchestras around the globe, and has made numerous recordings, as well as being a prolific author and music historian. He is the recipient of numerous honors for his contributions to the music industry. For more information, please visit americansymphony.org.