Columbus Symphony to Explore MOZART TO BRAHMS VIA PARIS

The perfect pairing of Mozart and Brahms, this program also includes the lush, impressionistic music of Lili Boulanger. Conducted by JoAnn Falletta, who blazed the trail for the great female maestras of the late 20th century, guest violinist Alexi Kenney will treat audiences to a performance of Mozart's intimate Violin Concerto No. 3.

The Columbus Symphony presents Mozart to Brahms Via Paris at the Ohio Theatre (39 E. State St.) on Friday and Saturday, March 2 and 3, 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 - Patrons are invited to join Christopher Purdy in the theatre at 7pm for a 30-minute, pre-concert discussion about the works to be performed.

Postlude - Directly following the performance, patrons are invited to stay in the auditorium and enjoy a talk back with the evening's artists.

Accompaniments:

Friday Coffee Dress - Friday, March 2, 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 guest conductor JoAnn Falletta

Internationally celebrated as a vibrant ambassador for music, an inspiring artistic leader, and a champion of American symphonic music, Falletta serves as music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, as well as principal guest conductor of the Brevard Music Center. She has guest conducted more than 100 orchestras in North America, and many of the most prominent orchestras in Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa. She has served as a member of the National Council on the Arts, was recently elected as a member of the esteemed American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the recipient of many of the most prestigious conducting awards. A leading recording artist for Naxos, her discs have garnered two Grammy Awards and 10 nominations.

Upon her appointment as music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) in 1999, Falletta became the first female conductor to lead a major American ensemble. She has since been credited with bringing the BPO to a new level of national and international prominence. This spring, she will lead the BPO in their first overseas tour since 1988, performing at the Beethoven Festival in Poland where JoAnn will make history as the first American woman to lead a concert at the Festival.

Falletta received her undergraduate degree from the Mannes School of Music, and her master's and doctorate degrees from The Juilliard School.

About guest violinist Alexi Kenney

The recipient of a 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant, violinist Alexi Kenney has been named "a talent to watch" by the New York Times, which also noted his "architect's eye for structure and space and a tone that ranges from the achingly fragile to full-bodied robustness." His win at the 2013 Concert Artists Guild Competition at the age of nineteen led to a critically acclaimed Carnegie Hall debut recital at Weill Hall. Kenney has appeared as soloist with the Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Portland, Riverside, Santa Fe, and Tulare County symphonies, the Staatstheater Orchestra of Cottbus, Germany, and A Far Cry, and in recital at Caramoor, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Jordan Hall in Boston, and at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival. He has been profiled by Strings Magazine and the New York Times, written for The Strad, and has been featured on "Performance Today," WQXR-NY's "Young Artists Showcase," WFMT-FM (Chicago), and NPR's "From the Top."

About composer Marie-Juliette Olga ("Lili") Boulanger (1893-1918)

French composer Lili Boulanger was the younger sister of noted composer and composition teacher Nadia Boulanger, and the first female to win the Prix de Rome composition prize. A Parisian-born child prodigy, Boulanger accompanied her 10-year-old sister to classes at the Paris Conservatoire before she was five, shortly thereafter sitting in on classes on music theory and studying organ. She also sang and played piano, violin, cello and harp. Her work is noted for its colorful harmony and instrumentation and skillful text setting. Her instrumental work D'un soir triste (A sad evening) was the last composition she was able to physically write with her own hand before she began needing assistance. The symphonic poem D'un matin de printemps (One spring morning) is one of her final completed works. Although both works were completed by Lili before her premature death at the age of 24, her sister Nadia reportedly edited the works to add dynamics and performance directions.

About composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91)

The most prolific and influential composer of the Classical era, Mozart composed more than 600 works in his lifetime, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, and his influence is profound on subsequent Western art music. Mozart composed the Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major in Salzburg in 1775 at the age of 19. Arguably his most popular violin concerto, it is a more intimate work than No. 4 or No. 5, offering sweet and simple melodies in a three-movement Classical chamber concerto that takes a clever, colorful, and continually changing dramatic course.

About composer Johannes Brahms (1833-97)

German composer and pianist Johannes Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, and voice/chorus, many of which have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. As a virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. Brahms claimed it took 21 years to complete his Symphony No. 1, which finally premiered on November 4, 1876, in Karlsruhe (then the Grand Duchy of Baden).

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