The KSO's Masterworks series rolls on this week with a feisty Glinka overture, Beethoven's first piano concerto, a dance suite by groundbreaking composer Florence Price, and Stravinsky's vivid Firebird Suite. Guest maestra Mei-Ann Chen will direct, accompanying piano soloist Lise de la Salle in the Beethoven. It will be one of the last chances to catch Concertmaster Gabe Lefkowitz on the Masterworks stage, as he soon concludes his tenure with the KSO this spring, before he devotes his energy to his Concertmasterly duties solely with the Louisville Orchestra.
Ms Chen's energy on the podium is abundant, and she had some great analogies to make the orchestra go beyond the notes and play the music. She recently concluded her tenure as Music Director of the Memphis Symphony and currently leads the Chicago Sinfonietta, in addition to guest appearances worldwide. She is also a champion of the music of Florence Price, whose Dances in the Canebrakes we are performing this Thursday and Friday.
Florence Price was an early 20th-century African-American composer who was born in Arkansas and educated in Boston at the New England Conservatory, and in Chicago, where she studied composition with Leo Sowerby, among others. Her music may remind you of that of William Grant Still, whose African-American Symphony was performed on the Tennessee Theatre stage in November. That is not merely a coincidence, as both he and Ms Price both grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Dances in the Canebrakes was orchestrated by Still from Price's piano suite. It has an easy-going, Southern manner, and frankly, I can't get it out of my head right now.
That would be a good way to describe the effects that the rest of the program should have as well. Glinka's classic Overture to Russlan and Ludmilla is the epitome of punchiness, with its great tunes and breakneck pace. Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 probably holds that tune in your head you've been trying to identify for the last two weeks. The Firebird Suite is one of the “Big 3” Stravinsky ballet scores; be ready for THE most startling fortissimo wake-up chord in history, which starts Kashchei's Dance after the lush Rondes des princesses has pacified you.
That's Thursday and Friday, February 16 and 17 at the Tennessee Theatre, 7:30!
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We knew the day would come, when our esteemed concertmaster would attain to and achieve higher ground, and that day has arrived, as you have read recently. In August, Gabe Lefkowitz was selected to be concertmaster for the Louisville Orchestra, after holding that position with us here in Knoxville since 2010. This season he has been splitting his time with both groups; how is that even possible?!
The Gabe Lefkowitz and Friends Concertmaster Series brought a needed new chamber music twist to the KSO's programming, with a humble beginning at Remedy Coffee in the Old City, and graduating to its current home at the Knoxville Museum of Art. I always asked myself, how on earth did he learn so much music so well at such an early age? Add to that performances of concertos by Mozart, Korngold, and (next month!) Brahms, carry the Paganini, and that equals a large sum of music. It was not merely “chops and charts,” however, that won everyone over. Gabe is well-read in music and out of it, and leads an active, robust lifestyle that most men his age just wish for. Tumbling, tennis and triathlon are just the “leisure-time” activities of his that start with a “T.” None of this would matter, though, if he wasn't a thoroughly nice guy with a huge heart, and that's the part about him that I will miss the most.
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