UPCOMING CONCERTS & EVENTS

THE 1001 ARABIAN NIGHTS - OFJ
Second Orchestra Season 2017 Program 4
THE 1001 ARABIAN NIGHTS
Sunday, July 02, 2017
12:30 hrs. Teatro Degollado
EVENT DESCRIPTION

Program 4
THE 1001 ARABIAN NIGHTS

Sascha Goetzel, Guest Conductor
Philippe QuintViolin

Piotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKYEugene Onegin: Polonaise and Waltz.
Samuel BARBERConcerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 14
Soloist: Philippe Quint
Nicolai RIMSKI-KORSAKOV, Scheherazade, Op.35

Thursday,June 29th, 8:30 PM, Palcco
Sunday, July 2nd, 12:30 PM, Teatro Degollado
Second Orchestra Season 2017

For the first time in Mexico, one of the most outstanding directors of his generation, Austrian conductor Sascha Goetzel, will lead the OFJ.  Maestro Goetzel is the current Music Director of the Borusan Philharmonic of Istanbul, Turkey, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Kanagawa Philharmonic in Japan. 

The program begins with music by Russian composer Piotr Ilich Tchaikovsky.  In May, 1877, while working on his Fourth Symphony, the composer read Alexander Pushkin´s verse novel Eugene Onegin, and became obsessed by the romantic aspects of the story--even more than by the characters themselves  He decided to turn it into an opera that would feature the richness of its poetry and the humanity and simplicity of the plot.  

In the opera, a peasant girl named Tatiana falls deeply in love with a handsome and arrogant young man (Onegin).  Giving little importance to Tatiana´s love, he flirts with his best friend (Lensky)´s fiancee.  In the middle of this saga of love and jealousy, we can witness some sophisticated dances:  A Waltz (in the celebration of Tatiana´s birthday), and a Polonaise (in the part of the opera where Tatiana, rejected by Onegin and now married to a prince) holds a grand ball in her sumptuous home in St. Petersburg.  These two orchestral pieces open the program.

A favorite of the Tapatio public and one of the most  preeminent violinists of our time, Philippe Quint, returns to Guadalajara to make us fall in love again--with the gorgeous sound of his Stradivarius “Ruby”--and with what is considered to be " the greatest Concerto for violin written in the United States of America": The Concerto, Opus 14, by Samuel Barber. begun in Switzerland in 1939 in response to a commision from a powerful American industrialist for the latter´s adopted son (an amateur violinist who considered this score to be “lightweight and boring"). Today, the Barber Concerto is considered an authentic "twentieth century classic". 

This program concludes with Nikolai Rimski-Kórsakov´s genius in his approach to the Thousand and One Arabian Nights:  the symphonic suite Schéhérazade, Opus 35, a score which was written and premiered in St. Petersburg in 1888. In the Arabian Nights tales, Schéhérazade is one of the wives of Sultan Shahriar, who, convinced of the infidelity of all of his women, decides to kill them, one by one, at sundown. Schéhérazade cleverly decides to show her loyalty to the sultan by telling him stories.  For one thousand and one nights, her stories keep her husband entertained, to the point where, at the end of this time period, he completely forgets his murderous intentions.

 

*Tickets available on Ticketmaster
*Music Appreciation lecture on Sunday at 11:00 AM, Free and open to the public Teatro Degollado
*30% Discounts for students, seniors, teachers, and persons with disabilities
*Programming  subject to change without notice