North Carolina Symphony Presents PASSPORT TO HUNGARY, 1/12-14

Associate Conductor Sarah Hicks leads the North Carolina Symphony and a pair of featured soloists in a program sure to inspire with works from one of classical music's most influential national traditions. PASSPORT TO HUNGARY highlights the folk song-inspired masterworks of Kodály and Bartók and features a rare performance of Kamilló Lendvay's Concertino semplice for the Hungarian national instrument, the cimbalom.

Performances of PASSPORT TO HUNGARY take place at Memorial Hall on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012, and Meymandi Concert Hall, in downtown Raleigh's Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts, on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 13-14, 2012. All three concerts begin at 8:00 p.m.

"Very beautiful, and some absolute fireworks at the end," says Symphony Music Director Grant Llewellyn of this transporting concert event. "Compelling and flavorful. You get a real immersion in the culture and sense of place for Hungary in this program."

Lending a hand is versatile Hungarian musician Petra Berényi, a graduate of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music and winner of an award from the Artisjus Foundation for her outstanding cimbalom performances of Hungarian contemporary music. Now a Triangle resident, she was recently featured in the Carolina Ballet's original production Dracula and appeared in performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and with Center City Opera at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia.

She joins the Symphony for composer Kamilló Lendvay's showpiece for the cimbalom, the Concertino semplice, a quick and energetic treat for audiences of all musical backgrounds. The performance offers a unique opportunity to hear this wonderful instrument, crucial to the development of Hungarian music, in the context of the classical music tradition the country inspired.

Among those works is a fiery solo for violin by French composer Maurice Ravel. Associate Concertmaster Dovid Friedlander takes center stage for Tzigane, an all-out display of violin technique inspired by the music of Liszt and Enesco.

"The work is filled with more than enough virtuosity to gratify the violinist and to electrify any audience," writes noted music scholar Richard E. Rodda. "Harmonics, multiple stops, pizzicati, trills and appoggiaturas abound."

The concert also features two incomparable masterworks of Hungarian music. First is Kodály's Dances of Galánta, a lively orchestral favorite based on melodies from a Gypsy dance, the verbunkos, and named after the composer's hometown.

The program comes to a commanding finish with Bartók's celebrated Concerto for Orchestra, "the best orchestral piece of the last twenty-five years," wrote Sergei Koussevitzky, music director of the Boston Symphony, following the work's premiere in 1943. That verdict holds up today on hearing the piece, one of the unquestioned masterpieces of 20th-century classical music.

PASSPORT TO HUNGARY is the first concert in the Symphony's Passport Series, a four-performance journey to some of classical music's most influential countries. Upcoming concerts include immersions in the rich and wonderful atmosphere of Argentina in "Tango Nuevo," as well as a visit to Llewellyn's homeland, Wales. The series also includes the Symphony's upcoming performance featuring Itzhak Perlman.

Details on the series, and the extraordinary savings offered by this four-concert package, are online at www.ncsymphony.org/passport.

Regular tickets to the Duke Medicine Classical Series Raleigh performances of PASSPORT TO HUNGARY on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 13-14, 2012, range from $33 to $48, with $30 tickets for seniors. Students receive $10 tickets at both venues.

For tickets, visit the North Carolina Symphony website at www.ncsymphony.org or call North Carolina Symphony Audience Services at 919.733.2750 or toll free 877.627.6724. The Passport Series is presented in partnership with American Airlines.

 

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