Connecticut Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra Announces 2024-2025 Season

Connecticut Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, under the baton of Maestro Adrian Sylveen, has announced its highly-anticipated programming for the company's 2024-2025 season of WE THE PEOPLE: Immigrant Stories in Music concert series. Each concert highlights the musical and artistic contributions of immigrant composers and musicians on the American musical landscape.

 

Each concert program will be performed three times, all in spectacular settings -- The Bushnell Performing Arts Center @ the First Presbyterian Church of Hartford (136 Capitol Avenue, Hartford, CT); New Britain Museum of American Art (56 Lexington Street, New Britain, CT); and the Weill Recital Hall at the legendary Carnegie Hall (154 W 57th Street, New York City, NY).

 

The 2024-2025 Connecticut Virtuosi Concert Season

 

THE SHADOWS OF OUR DESTINY

Adrian Sylveen, Conductor

Brunilda Myftaraj (violin) and Laura Andreini (soprano), Soloists

 

Program:

Jakub Polaczyk: Slavic Streams: “Śmiętlana” (World Premiere)

Alban Berg: Violin Concerto (arr. for chamber orchestra) featuring Brunilda Myftaraj, soloist

Ottorino Respighi: Il Tramanto (The Sunset, text by Shelley) featuring Laura Andreini, soprano

Joseph Haydn: Symphony No.44 in E minor

 

Sunday, October 6 at 3pm - Hartford

Sunday, October 13 at 3pm - New Britain

Tuesday, October 15 at 8pm - New York City

 

The first concert of the season will feature the world premiere of Jakub Polaczyk's Slavic Streams: “Śmiętlana.” Polaczyk, born in Kraków, Poland, is a New York-based composer and pianist. Double Silver Medal winner of the Global Music Awards (2023), winner of the 2020 American Prize in Composition, and 2013 Iron Instant Composer Award in Cleveland, OH. He graduated from Jagiellonian University, Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Kraków, and Carnegie Mellon University, and as a Socrates-Erasmus exchange program, he studied at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. Since 2015, he has been teaching at the New York Conservatory of Music and, since 2018, has been a New Music Director of the Chopin and Friends Festival in NYC.

 

Alban Berg's Violin Concerto, composed in 1935, is one of his most renowned works. The concerto blends diatonic and twelve-tone techniques, creating a poignant and expressive piece. Premiering shortly before Berg's death in 1936, this concerto remains a significant work in the 20th-century violin repertoire. Virtuosi Concertmaster Brunilda Myftaraj will perform the complex violin solo.

 

Ottorino Resphigi's lyric poem Il Tramanto, based on a text by Percy Bysshe Shelley, for voice and string orchestra will feature guest soprano Laura Andreini (New Britain and New York performances only).

 

Albanian-American violinist Brunilda Myftaraj has drawn enthusiastic accolades from audiences and critical acclaim for her masterful musicianship in Albania, Italy, Greece, France, Morocco, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Israel, and the United States. She has been praised by the critics as an “especially fine and beautiful player.” Myftaraj's teachers are some of the world's finest, but her true inspiration comes from her audiences and students. Since 2023 Mrs. Myftaraj is a member of The Berkshire Bach Society. Her recordings of Naked Violin and The American Pie received impeccable reviews from Fanfare magazine.

 

Soprano Laura Andreini lives near Florence in the heart of Chianti.

In 2020, she celebrated her first ten years of a career as an opera singer, which has taken her around Italy and the world. Her suitcase is always ready, and her enthusiasm and passion have been cultivated through years of study in Italy, in Arezzo, Siena, and abroad in the Netherlands and Switzerland, as well as performing in concerts, opera productions, and events in prestigious theaters and concert halls worldwide.

 

JOURNEY IN DREAMS OF TIMES & PLACES

Damiano Tognetti, conductor

Ottorino Respighi: Antiche danze et arie per liuto, Suite No.3

Ernesto Ferreri: Octet for Chamber Orchestra, op. 32

Johannes Brahms: Violin Concerto, Op.77 featuring soloist Adrian Sylveen

 

Sunday, February 2 at 3pm - Hartford Friday, February 7 at 8pm - New York City

Sunday, February 9 at 3pm - New Britain

 

 

HINDUSTANI - THE SOUNDS OF NORTH INDIA

Program and Guest Artists to be announced

 

Sunday, June 1, 2025 at 3pm - Hartford

Sunday, June 8, 2025 at 3pm - New Britain

New York concert date to be announced.

 

In addition to the WE THE PEOPLE concert series, The Connecticut Virtuosi will be performing Puccini's beloved La Bohême with Connecticut Lyric Opera (Sunday, November 17 at the Santo Fragilio Performing Arts Center in Middletown; Thursday, November 21 at The Bushnell @ The First Presbyterian Church in Hartford; ); a program of pipe organ and orchestra music at Saints Cyril and Methodius Church (63 Popieluszko Court, Hartford on December 1 and April 13); The Music of Chopin and Polish Christmas (Central Connecticut State University in New Britain on December 22); and Anthony Davis' Amistad with Connecticut Lyric Opera in May 2025 (details TBA).

 

For more information and to secure your seats, please visit TheVirtuosi.org or contact us at (860) 325-2826.

 

Connecticut Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra looks forward to welcoming audiences to these exceptional events and continuing to bring the beauty and power of music to our community.

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