Orpheus Chamber Orchestra Returns to the Morris Museum

In the spring of 2020 when the pandemic took hold and concert venues were closing their doors, the Morris Museum opened its parking lot. Curatorial Director, Brett Wellman Messenger, took a tape measure and chalk and drew 119 blocks, 8ft square each and a new outdoor performance venue was born. The Lot of Strings Festival hosted the best chamber ensembles who were grateful for a chance to play and audiences who were eager to hear them. The famed Orpheus Chamber Orchestra performed multiple times and a special relationship was born. Now the relationship culminates in an evening inside the intimate 312 seat Bickford Theatre featuring the full orchestra and guest soloist, Turkish pianist, Fazil Say whom The Observer described as the "definition of virtuosity."

Say joins the orchestra for two selections -his own Silk Road Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 4, in which he shares his own musical exploration of the legendary Silk Road and Turkey's role in this fascinating chapter of history - and Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 488, composed in his heyday in Vienna. These selections, chosen very deliberately, are a symbol of reunion and musical friendship; Orpheus and Say last collaborated in 2015 and 2016 Carnegie Hall together, with performances declared to be "all exuberance" by The New York Times.

With his extraordinary pianistic talents, Fazıl Say has been celebrated by audiences and critics alike for more than twenty-five years. Concerts with this artist are something different. They are more direct, more open, more exciting and more heartfelt than the typical musical fare. Say was just 24 years old in 1994 when he composed Silk Road, following extensive study of ancient Eastern folk music in the archives of the Berlin Museum of Ethnology. This remarkable concerto is divided into four movements, each one capturing the musical devices of a different region found along the 4,000 mile trade route: Tibet (White dove, black clouds), India (Hindu Dances), Mesopotamia (Massacre), and Anatolia (Earth Ballad), modern-day Turkey. The movements are interconnected by the striking of the tam-tam, signifying the thread of Chinese influence throughout.

In the years shortly after Mozart married and took the Vienna by storm, his main sources of income as a freelancer were the concerts he self-produced; between 1784 and 1786 alone, concertgoers enjoyed a dozen piano concertos by the young composer. Early sketches of the Piano Concerto No. 23 included two oboes in the instrumentation, but at the time of the work's publishing into Mozart's astonish catalogue, he had revised this detail to include clarinets instead, helping to usher in the relatively new concept of more wind-heavy orchestrations.

The concert concludes with the Orchestra performing a lush chamber orchestra arrangement of Tchaikovsky's String Quartet No. 1, ranging from sweet to romantic to fiery, with folk motifs throughout. Some years after its premiere, Tchaikovsky wrote in his diary after a performance of the Quartet at the Moscow Conservatory: "Never in my life have I felt so flattered and proud of my creative ability as when Leo Tolstoy, sitting next to me, heard my andante with tears coursing down his cheeks." This arrangement by the composer Christopher Theofanidis for chamber symphony blossoms while maintaining its inherent intimacy.