Columbus Symphony to Perform Shostakovich And Rachmaninoff in RUSSIAN WINTER FESTIVAL II

Conducted by CSO Music Director Rossen Milanov, Grammy Award-winning violinist Augustin Hadelich will undertake the edgy realism of Shostakovich, which will then be juxtaposed against the romantic world of Rachmaninoff in the second and final installment of the Columbus Symphony's Russian Winter Festival. The full program includes Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1 and Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2.

The Columbus Symphony presents Russian Winter Festival II: Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff at the Ohio Theatre (39 E. State St.) on Friday and Saturday, February 9 and 10, at 8pm. Tickets start at $10 and can be purchased at the CAPA Ticket Center (39 E. State St.), all Ticketmaster outlets, and www.ticketmaster.com. To purchase tickets by phone, please call (614) 469-0939 or (800) 745-3000. The CAPA Ticket Center will also be open two hours prior to each performance.

Prelude - As part of the CSO's Subject Matter lecture series, Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle from The Ohio State University's Department of History, will preface the evening's program with a lecture titled Russian in War and Revolution: The Worlds of Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich.

Postlude - Directly following the performance, patrons are invited to stay in the auditorium and enjoy a string quartet performance of works from Shostakovich by Columbus Symphony musicians.

Accompaniments:

Friday Coffee Dress - Friday, February 9, 10am, Ohio Theatre (39 E. State St.)

Experience a working rehearsal prior to that evening's opening-night performance. Seating is general admission for this 2.5 hour, open rehearsal, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the fine tuning and preparation behind a Masterworks main stage performance. Tickets are $10 and include coffee and snacks.

About CSO Music Director Rossen Milanov

Respected and admired by audiences and musicians alike, Rossen Milanov is currently the Music Director of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, Princeton Symphony Orchestra, and the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias in Spain.

Milanov has established himself as a conductor with considerable national and international presence. He has appeared with the symphonies of Colorado, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Seattle, and Fort Worth, as well as the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall "Link Up" education projects with Chicago's Orchestra of St. Luke's and Civic Orchestra.

Internationally, Milanov has collaborated with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra de la Suisse Romand, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Aalborg, Latvian, and Hungarian National Symphony Orchestras. He has also conducted orchestras in Toronto, Vancouver, Mexico, Colombia, Sao Paolo, Belo Horizonte, New Zealand, and the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic in South Africa. In the Far East, he has appeared with the symphonies of NHK, Sapporo, Tokyo, and Singapore, the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Orchestra, the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic.

Milanov studied conducting at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School where he received the Bruno Walter Memorial Scholarship.

About guest violinist Augustin Hadelich

Augustin Hadelich has established himself as one of the great violinists of his generation, performing with every major US orchestra, many on multiple occasions, as well as an ever-growing number of major orchestras in the UK, Europe, and the Far East. His career took off when he was named Gold Medalist of the 2006 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. Since then, he has garnered an impressive list of honors, including the inaugural Warner Music Prize in 2015, and a 2016 Grammy Award for his recording of Dutilleux's violin concerto, "L'arbre des songes," with the Seattle Symphony under Ludovic

Morlot. Hadelich plays the 1723 "Ex-Kiesewetter" Stradivari violin, on loan from Clement and

Karen Arrison through the Stradivari Society of Chicago.

About composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-75)

Regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century, Shostakovich was a Russian composer and pianist is known as a polystylist, combining a variety of different musical techniques into his works. Heavily influenced by Stravinsky and Mahler, Shostakovich's music is characterized by sharp contrasts, elements of the grotesque, and ambivalent tonality. His Violin Concerto No. 1 was written in 1947-48. In the time between the work's initial completion and the first performance on October 29, 1955, the composer and its dedicatee, David Oistrakh, worked on a number of revisions. The work finally premiered with the Leningrad Philharmonic and was well received, with Oistrakh remarking on the "depth of its artistic content" and describing the violin part as a "pithy 'Shakespearian' role."

About composer Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

Rachmaninoff was a Russian pianist, composer, and conductor of the late Romantic period that penned some of the most popular in the romantic repertoire. Known for his song-like melodicism, expressiveness, and use of rich orchestral colors, Rachmaninoff prominently featured the piano in his compositions, and through his own skills as a performer, explored the expressive possibilities of the instrument. Written in 1906-07, his Symphony No. 2 premiered in Saint Petersburg on February 8, 1908, and was conducted by Rachmaninoff himself. Still today one of his best-known compositions, the score was dedicated to Sergei Taneyev, a Russian composer, teacher, theorist, author, and pupil of Tchaikovsky.

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