The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia Announces Season Opening Concert

A founding resident company of The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia (COP) announces the kickoff of their 2017/2018 season Improvisionaries with their season opening concert, Haydn & Goldenthal. The Chamber Orchestra's landmark Improvisionaries season will explore the art of improvisation from Baroque to the 21st century. Tine Thing Helseth makes her COP debut having recently sold out the Kimmel Center with her world renowned all female brass band tenThing. Helseth is the featured soloist in the world premiere of a new work by Academy Award-winning composer, Elliot Goldenthal. She will also perform Haydn's beloved Trumpet Concerto in Eb with new cadenzas written by Goldenthal specifically for Helseth's COP debut.

Called "Superstar of Tomorrow" by BBC Music Magazine, Tine Thing Helseth has become an international sensation, performing both solo and with her famed all female brass band, tenThing. An artist who challenges the boundaries of genre with an intensely creative, open-minded philosophy, Tine has worked with some of the world's leading orchestras to date, including the, BBC Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Danish Radio Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony, Swedish Radio Symphony, and the Orchestre philharmonique de Luxembourg.

Haydn's Trumpet Concerto in Eb marks a change in the history of the trumpet and reflects composers' fascination with, and inspiration by, new technology throughout the ages. In 1792, Anton Weidinger, trumpet virtuoso and inventor, created one of the earliest the 5-valved trumpets. This 5-valved trumpet eventually gave way to the valve trumpet we know today; however, the immense early popularity of this instrument led Haydn to compose his very first concerto for trumpet in 1796 featuring Weidinger as soloist. Elliot Goldenthal, a trained trumpeter, seeks to capture the excitement of that time by re-imagining Haydn's cadenzas for Helseth and infusing his own musical imagination into this beloved classic..

From commissions for the American Ballet Theatre (Othello) to his Academy and Golden Globe Award winning score to the movie Frida, Elliot Goldenthal's career spanning 30 years includes works for orchestra, theater, opera, ballet and filM. Goldenthal received his Bachelors and Masters from the Manhattan School of Music where he studied with famed composer John Corigliano. For Trumpet and Orchestra, a work dedicated to Tadeusz Ko?ciuszko - Polish Military Engineer and architect of West Point - will explore the relationship between a performer's artistic liberties and that of the orchestra though the partly-improvisatory musical structure of this new work.

Like Goldenthal, few composers moved between film, stage, and the concert hall as fluently as British composer and trumpeter Malcolm Arnold. Known for his Oscar winning score to David Lean's film The Bridge On the River Kwai, Arnold also composed five ballets for the Royal Ballet and two operas. The Chamber Orchestra will perform Arnold's "Serenade for Small Orchestra" which was composed in 1950 after WWII. Arnold was a conscientious objector to war as was fellow British composer, Frank Bridge. The Chamber Orchestra will also showcase Bridge's Lament for String Orchestra, composed in 1915 in opposition to WWI.

Maestro Dirk Brossé, international film composer and trumpet player himself, weaves together the aural tapestries of Haydn, Mozart, Malcolm Arnold, and Elliot Goldenthal as the Chamber Orchestra broadens the scope and understanding of the many-faceted art of improvisation, both through history's most beloved and recognized composers, and byengaging today's top artists in an exploration of new and exciting collaborative projects.

For more information visit chamberorchestra.org.

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