by Rachel Herrington | Mar 5, 2024
Door time: 6:00 PM
Show time: 6:30 PM
Music Director Peter Oundjian continues his tradition of ending the season with glorious music by Mahler. The composer built his Fourth Symphony around his own song “The Heavenly Life,” which borrows text from a Bavarian folk poem. “The angelic voices gladden our senses,” the poem proclaims, “so that everything awakens for joy.” Mahler’s sunniest symphony invokes bells, harp, and woodwinds; in keeping with the lightness of the work, Mahler insisted the soprano perform “with childlike, cheerful expression;” soprano Karina Gauvin joins the Festival in this role. This final concert of the season includes Ravel’s colorful twist on the Shéhérazade tales — again featuring Gauvin’s “glowing, flexible tone” (Opera News) — and the overture to Strauss’ most famous and farcical operetta, Die Fledermaus.
Artists:
Peter Oundjian, conductor
Karina Gauvin, soprano
Program:
Johann Strauss, Overture to Die Fledermaus
Maurice Ravel, Shéhérazade
Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 4
by Rachel Herrington | Mar 5, 2024
Door time: 6:00 PM
Show time: 6:30 PM
Augustin Hadelich, one of the greatest violinists of all time, returns to perform Tchaikovsky’s unparalleled Violin Concerto. The deeply patriotic Dvořák wished to use his music to recognize the struggle and oppression of his fellow Czechs; he wrote of this urgent Seventh Symphony, “What is in my mind is Love, God, and my Fatherland.” Kevin Puts’ Two Mountain Scenes, composed “with the impressive backdrop of the Rocky Mountains in mind” and beginning with “the sonic illusion of a single trumpet reverberating across the valley,” opens this wondrous program.
Artists:
Peter Oundjian, conductor
Augustin Hadelich, violin
Program:
Kevin Puts, Two Mountain Scenes (2007)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35
Antonin Dvořák, Symphony No. 7 in D Minor, Op. 70
by Rachel Herrington | Mar 5, 2024
Door time: 7:00 PM
Show time: 7:30 PM
Augustin Hadelich, one of the greatest violinists of all time, returns to perform Tchaikovsky’s unparalleled Violin Concerto. The deeply patriotic Dvořák wished to use his music to recognize the struggle and oppression of his fellow Czechs; he wrote of this urgent Seventh Symphony, “What is in my mind is Love, God, and my Fatherland.” Kevin Puts’ Two Mountain Scenes, composed “with the impressive backdrop of the Rocky Mountains in mind” and beginning with “the sonic illusion of a single trumpet reverberating across the valley,” opens this wondrous program.
Artists:
Peter Oundjian, conductor
Augustin Hadelich, violin
Program:
Kevin Puts, Two Mountain Scenes (2007)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35
Antonin Dvořák, Symphony No. 7 in D Minor, Op. 70
by Rachel Herrington | Mar 5, 2024
Door time: 7:00 PM
Show time: 7:30 PM
“Yes, playing string quartets is our job, and yes it is hard work, but we mostly do it for pleasure, like we always did,” says the Danish String Quartet, a highly sought-after ensemble of energetic musicians who met each other at music camp as teenagers. The Quartet returns to the Robert Mann Chamber Music Series with a varied program including work by Haydn, Stravinsky, and Mozart, as well as Shostakovich’s profound String Quartet No. 3 and three Irish folk melodies by Celtic harper and composer Turlough O’Carolan.
Artists:
Danish String Quartet
Program:
Joseph Haydn, String Quartet, Op. 77, No. 2: III, Andante
Igor Stravinsky, Three Pieces for String Quartet
Turlough O’Carolan, Three Melodies
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Divertimento in F Major, K. 138
Dmitri Shostakovich, String Quartet No. 3 in F Major, Op. 73
by Rachel Herrington | Mar 5, 2024
Door time: 6:00 PM
Show time: 6:30 PM
The Washington Post declares that twin sister pianists Christina and Michelle Naughton “have to be heard to be believed”; the Festival is honored to welcome these audience favorites for an all-Mozart program. Following the charming serenade Eine kleine Nachtmusik (“A Little Night Music”), the Naughtons perform the Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, written for Mozart to play with his beloved sister Nannerl. After intermission is Mozart’s Haffner Symphony, a staggering work of intensity and invention.
Artists:
Gemma New, conductor
Christina and Michelle Naughton, piano duo
Program:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Eine kleine Nachtmusik
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Concerto in E-flat Major for Two Pianos, K. 365
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Symphony No. 35, Haffner