Music Director Peter Oundjian leads a rare Denver appearance of the enormously talented violinist Kerson Leong*, who has been described as “not just one of Canada’s greatest violinists but one of the greatest violinists, period” (Toronto Star). He’ll steal the show with the music of Argentine tango composer Astor Piazzolla, whose collection of vibrant musical portraits of Buenos Aires pays homage to Vivaldi’s own Four Seasons.
Next, prepare to be inspired by the music of Brahms, who famously grappled with the challenge of composing a symphony in a post-Beethoven world. After the agonizing two decades it took to complete his first, this Second Symphony sprung forth in just four short months. Inhabiting a shimmering pastoral world with radiant sunshine tempered occasionally by underlying shadows of melancholy, this work is the sweetest and gentlest of Brahms’ four treasured symphonies.
A weekend of symphonic portraiture opens with Smetana’s The Moldau, a musical painting of the Bohemian river of the same name, providing a serene beginning to an evening of symphonic bliss.
