Fascinating Lineup of CSO's Last Notes Festival to Include Final Works of Tchaikovsky and Mozart
By: A.A. Cristi Oct. 18, 2016
In the first of four festivals in the CSO's 2016-17 season, Music Director Rossen Milanov will lead the CSO in the Last Notes Festival, showcasing the majestic, final works of Tchaikovsky and Mozart. Enhanced by educational and interactive offerings in the week prior to the concerts, the Last Notes Festival will include Tchaikovsky's haunting and turbulent Sixth Symphony, his final completed symphony that struggles between hope and despair, and the mercurial overture to Mozart's last opera, Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute). Additionally, the CSO, guest violinist Anthony Marwood, and renowned American composer and electric guitar maestro Steve Mackey will perform Four Iconoclastic Episodes, a captivating work composed by Mackey as a double concerto for violin and electric guitar.
The Columbus Symphony presents the Last Notes Festival at the Ohio Theatre (39 E. State St.) on Friday and Saturday, November 18 and 19, at 8pm. Tickets start at $10 and can be purchased at the CAPA Ticket Center (39 E. State St.), all Ticketmaster outlets, andwww.ticketmaster.com. To purchase tickets by phone, please call (614) 228-8600 or (800) 745-3000. The CAPA Ticket Center will also be open two hours prior to each performance.
The 2016-17 Masterworks Series is made possible through the generous support of season sponsor Anne Melvin.
Prelude - Patrons are invited to join Christopher Purdy at 7pm for a 30-minute, pre-concert discussion about the works to be performed.
Postlude - At the conclusion of the program, patrons are encouraged to participate in a discussion with CSO Music Director Rossen Milanov and featured guest musicians, Anthony Marwood and Steve Mackey, from the Ohio Theatre stage.
Supporting Events
Subject Matter - Tuesday, November 15, 5:30pm, Urban Arts Space (50 W. Town St.)
In this free lecture series designed to complement upcoming CSO programming, Dr. Arved Ashby, PhD, Professor of Music at The Ohio State University, will address 20th and 21st century classical music within broader contexts of cultural history, critical theory, post-Marxist aesthetics, and media and communications.
Mozart to Matisse - Wednesday, November 16, 2pm, Columbus Museum of Art (480 E. Broad St.)
In this CSO collaboration with the Columbus Museum of Art, this afternoon lecture will examine late styles of artists who thrived in the final years of their lives and careers, such as Monet and Renoir, and conclude with a performance of Beethoven's String Quartet No. 14 by CSO musicians.
Additional
Soundbites - Chef John Paul Iacobucci and The Guild House team of culinary artisans have skillfully created a delectable scallop dish inspired by Mackey's Four Iconoclastic Episodes. Available at The Guild House (624 N. High St.) during the month of November, this flavorful delight features scallops with a dynamic ensemble of English peas, baby carrots, parsnip puree, and orange vinaigrette.
About CSO Music Director Rossen Milanov
Respected and admired by audiences and musicians alike, Rossen Milanov is currently the Music Director of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, and recently completed his second season with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra to enthusiastic acclaim. He is also Music Director of the Princeton Symphony and Spain's Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias (OSPA).
The 2016-17 CSO season builds upon many of the innovative ideas that were introduced in his first season-thematic festivals, enrichment programs, integrated experiences, and collaborations with other local cultural institutions. In Princeton, he is continuing the tradition of adventurous programming and collaborating with violinist Leila Josefowicz, clarinetist David Krakauer, and composers Saad Haddad and Zhou Tian. In Spain, he will conduct the Spanish premiere of Tchaikovsky's Mazeppa with the Oviedo Opera and the gala concert of the "Princess of Asturias" awards with OSPA.
Milanov has collaborated with some of the world's preeminent artists including Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell, Midori, Christian Tetzlaff, and André Watts. During his 11-year tenure with the Philadelphia Orchestra, he conducted more than 200 performances as Associate Conductor and as Artistic Director of the Orchestra's summer home at The Mann Center for the Performing Arts. In 2015, he completed a 15-year tenure as Music Director of the nationally recognized training orchestra Symphony in C in New Jersey. His passion for new music has resulted in numerous world premieres of works by composers such as Richard Danielpour, Nicolas Maw, and Gabriel Prokofiev among others.
Rossen Milanov studied conducting at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, where he received the Bruno Walter Memorial Scholarship.
About guest violinist Anthony Marwood
Well established in Europe and Australia as leader and soloist with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, the Norwegian and Swedish Chamber Orchestras, Camerata Bern, and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Anthony Marwood was named to a three-season term as principal artistic partner of Les Violons du Roy in 2011, and has since been a frequent guest soloist in its eclectic mix of baroque, classical, and contemporary programs.
About guest guitarist and composer Steve Mackey
Regarded as one of the leading composers of his generation, Mackey has composed for orchestra, chamber ensembles, dance, and opera. His first musical passion was electric guitar, and he has blazed a trail by integrating it in into his own concert music, including two electric guitar concertos and numerous solo and chamber works. Mackey's orchestral music has been performed by major orchestras around the world, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco and Chicago Symphonies, the BBC Philharmonic, Concertgebouw orchestra, Austrian Radio Symphony, Sydney Symphony, and Tokyo Philharmonic. As a guitarist, Mackey has performed his chamber music with the Kronos Quartet, Arditti Quartet, London Sinfonietta, Nexttime Ensemble (Parma), Psappha (Manchester), and Joey Baron.
About composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91)
Mozart was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era, composing more than 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, and his influence is profound on subsequent Western classical music. Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), composed in a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue, premiered on September 30, 1791, just two months before the composer's premature death. In the opera, the Queen of the Night persuades Prince Tamino to rescue her daughter Pamina from the captivity of high priest Sarastro. Instead, Tamino discovers the high ideals of Sarastro's community and seeks to join it. Separately, then together, Tamino and Pamina undergo severe trials of initiation, which end in triumph with the Queen and her cohorts vanquished.
About composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-93)
Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer of the late-Romantic period whose works are among the most popular in classical repertoire. He was the first Russian composer who made a lasting impression internationally, bolstered by his appearances as a guest conductor in Europe and the US. Symphony No. 6 in B Minor ("Pathétique") is his final completed symphony, written between February and August, 1893. Tchaikovsky led its first performance in Saint Petersburg on October 28, 1893, nine days before his death. Its second performance took place at his memorial concert 21 days later.
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