Pianist Denis Kozhukhin to Return to Jones Hall for Recording Project

Russian pianist Denis Kozhukhin will return to the Jones Hall stage for Gershwin & Rachmaninoff at 8 p.m. Jan. 27-28 and 2:30 p.m. Jan. 29.

Led by Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada, the program will kick off with Gershwin's An American in Paris, followed by John Adams' Doctor Atomic Symphony. The evening concludes with Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3, which will be recorded for future commercial release.

This season, opera companies and orchestras worldwide - including the Houston Grand Opera, London Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic - have programmed John Adams' work in honor of his 70th birthday, which occurs in February 2017. His Doctor Atomic Symphony is a 22-minute work extracted from Adams' full-length opera about the invention of the atomic bomb, titled Doctor Atomic.

"I liked the orchestra music in the opera but it often gets buried in the pit, so I made this compact, high-energy symphony that is almost explosive in itself," Adams said. "The kind of existential angst and awareness of nuclear war, the fear I felt as a kid growing up in the 50s and 60s, is represented by the orchestra's very powerful, dissonant sound."

In the second half of the concert, Denis Kozhukhin will perform the ultra-romantic Piano Concerto No. 3 by Rachmaninoff. Kozhukhin is known for his technical mastery of the piano, combined with extreme musical intelligence and maturity. In 2010, he won First Prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels and has gained much career-boosting acclaim since. The performance will kick off the project to record all of Rachmaninoff's piano concertos with Kozhukhin - who records exclusively for the Dutch label PENTATONE - and the Houston Symphony in the next two seasons.

Gershwin's jazz-infused An American in Paris will also be recorded during the concert for a Houston Symphony "Music of the Americas" album. That album will also include Revueltas' Sensemayá and Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, both of which will be recorded in early February.

The concert will take place at Jones Hall for the Performing Arts, 615 Louisiana Street, in Houston's Theater District. For tickets and information, call (713) 224-7575 or visit www.houstonsymphony.org. Tickets may also be purchased at the Houston Symphony Patron Services Center in Jones Hall (Monday-Saturday from 10 a.m.-6 p.m.). All programs and artists are subject to change.

PROGRAM:

GERSHWIN & RACHMANINOFF

Friday, Jan. 27, 2017, at 8 p.m.

Saturday, Jan. 28, 2017, at 8 p.m.

Sunday, Jan. 29, 2017, at 2:30 p.m.

Andrés Orozco-Estrada, conductor

Denis Kozhukhin, piano

Gershwin: An American in Paris

John Adams: Doctor Atomic Symphony

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3

Tickets from $25

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