This week’s Knoxville Symphony Orchestra Masterworks pair of concerts begins the monthly “audition” series in the orchestra’s music director selection process. This month’s candidate is Marcelo Lehninger who most recently was associate conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Lehninger’s program includes:
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 1
Ravel: Tzigane (with violinist Gabriel Lefkowitz)
Debussy: Two Preludes
Respighi: Pines of Rome
While most listeners eagerly await Pines of Rome–and well they should–Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 1 gives listeners a glimpse of the young composer, full of youthful Soviet ideals, prior to the period of conflict with Stalin and the regime’s mind-bogglingly destructive views of art.
Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 1 was completed in 1925 as the final part of his studies at the Petrograd Conservatory. He was 19 years old. The work was premiered by the Leningrad Philharmonic in May of 1926.
Lehninger’s soloist will be KSO concertmaster, Gabriel Lefkowitz, in Ravel’s ever-so intriguing Tzigane. The ten-minute work was originally written for violin and piano and premiered in April, 1924. Ravel orchestrated the piano part for a performance that fall. The word tzigane refers to the European term for ‘gypsy’; Ravel’s work does not contain authentic gypsy music, but is, for all intents, ‘in the gypsy style.’
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Knoxville Symphony Orchestra Masterworks
Tennessee Theatre
Thursday and Friday, October 22 and 23, 7:30 p.m.
Tickets and Information (tickets start at $15)
