The Kansas City Chamber Orchestra To Open Season With Blockbuster Concert At Grace And Holy Trinity Cathedral

The Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, in its annual collaboration with the International Center for Music at Park University (Park ICM), will open its 37th concert season with a blockbuster concert presenting works by two of the 18th century’s greatest composers for keyboard and orchestra.

Featuring the thrilling and virtuosic Brandenburg Concerto No.5 in D major by J.S. Bach, and the haunting, beautiful melodies of Piano Concerto No.9 in E-flat major by W.A. Mozart, it will be an incredible musical journey. The concert will be held Thursday, September 28, 7:30 p.m., at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral, in downtown Kansas City, Mo. The concert will be preceded by a complimentary pre-concert talk on the background of the music at 6:30 p.m. 

KCCO Maestro Bruce Sorrell announced his delight in having Park ICM graduate student, pianist Kuok-Wai Lio, join the orchestra. “What a treat it will be to hear both of these great works in one evening, interpreted by this young virtuoso.”

A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, pianist Kuok-Wai Lio is a recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant administered by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Career Advancement Award given by the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia, and a Scholarship award by the Feltsman Piano Foundation. He is currently completing his Artist Diploma with Van Cliburn gold medalist Stanislav Ioudenitch at Park ICM. 

String students from Park ICM will also join the orchestra for this performance.

Conductor Bruce Sorrell further commented on the concert program, “Early in the 18th  Century, Bach completed his set of six Brandenburg Concertos, stunning in their variety and inventiveness. We have performed all of them several times over the past thirty-six seasons, but this will be the first time we have featured a modern piano as one of the solo instruments. The Fifth Brandenburg Concerto is renowned as a highly virtuosic and thrilling work for keyboard. It should be a thrill for Kansas City audiences.”

Equally important in the development of the keyboard concerto are the works by Mozart. Over fifty years after Bach’s achievement, Mozart began to revolutionize the piano concerto, imbuing them with drama, and haunting and beautiful melodies. This early concerto (Mozart was 21 when he wrote it) foreshadowed the compositional world of his later piano concertos.

Maestro Sorrell continued, “The concert will open with an arrangement by Michi Wiancko of Geminiani’s La Follia Variations. Wiancko riffs on the energy and style of the Baroque original, creating something fresh and utterly engaging.”

Kansas City Chamber Orchestra
Featuring Pianist Kuok-Wai Lio
September 28, 2023, 7:30 p.m.
Grace & Holy Trinity Cathedral
415 W. 13th Street
Kansas City, MO 64105

Full Concert Program:

La Follia Variations                                         M. Wiancko/Geminiani

Brandenburg Concerto No.5 in D major      J.S. Bach

Piano Concerto No.9 in E-flat major            W.A. Mozart

To post a comment, you must register and login.