Van Wezel's Great American Orchestra Series to Include Philadelphia Orchestra, LORD OF THE DANCE

Next season's Great American Orchestra Series includes: The Philadelphia Orchestra (Sat. Feb. 9 2013 @ 8 PM), the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (Sat. Feb. 23 @ 8 PM), and the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra (Fri. Mar. 1 2013 @ 8 PM), along with two Specials: 14^th Annual Salute to Vienna (Tues.Jan.1, 2013 @ 8PM), and violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman (Thurs. March 14, 2013 @ 8 PM). The powerful 2012-2013 Bravo Dance Series features MOMIX: Botanica (Tues. Jan.22, 2013 @ 8 PM), Motionhouse: Scattered (Tues. Jan. 29, 2013 @ 8 PM), the Russian National Ballet Theatre's Sleeping Beauty (Sun. Feb. 24, 2013 @ 7 PM), Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance (Tues. Mar. 12, 2013 @ 8 PM) and Parsons Dance (Wed. Mar. 20, 2013), and Dance Specials:  STOMP (Thurs. Jan.3, 2013), and Traces (Wed. Feb. 6 @ 8 PM).

Great American Orchestra Series

The Philadelphia Orchestra is admired for its keen ability to capture the hearts and imaginations of audiences, and for an unrivaled legacy of "firsts" in music-making. While wholly committed to the exploration of classical music and repertoire, the Orchestra also continues to develop programs that resonate with contemporary audiences. The Philadelphia Orchestra remains one of the preeminent orchestras in the world and is one of the prestigious "Big 5" American Orchestras.

Conductor: Rafael Fr?hbeck de Burgos

Soloist: André Watts, Piano

Program:

Liszt: Les Préludes, Symphonic Poem No.3 [16']

Grieg: Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.16 [30']

***intermission*** [20'] 

 

Beethoven: Symphony No.5 in C minor, Op.67 [31']

Sat. Feb. 9 2013 @ 8 PM 

 

For more than 100 years, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra has been a part of Pittsburgh's cultural landscape.

Conductor: Manfred Honeck

Soloist: Denis Matsuev, Piano

Program:

Mussorgsky (arr. Rimsky-Korsakov):  Night on Bald Mountain          [12']

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2                                                 [33']

Interval

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.5, op. 64, E minor                                  [50']

Sat. Feb. 23 2013 @ 8 PM

               

Otherwise known as "America's Orchestra," the Boston Pops, with conductor Keith Lockhart performs hundreds of shows in Boston, across the US and internationally. The annual 4th of July concert from the Esplanade in Boston attracts over 300,000 people and is viewed by more than 20 million on CBS. "Evening at Pops", the longest running concert program on TV features 13 nation-wide broadcasts each season. The Boston Pops' recordings are released by RCA. The Boston Pops is always a sellout at the Van Wezel. The program will include a tribute to Barbra Streisand featuring Ann Hampton Calloway.

Conductor: Keith Lockhart

Fri. Mar. 1 2013 @ 8 PM

               

Orchestra Specials

Welcome the New Year with New Year's Concert 2013: Salute to Vienna featuring the Strauss Symphony of America. Patterned after Vienna's world famous "Neujahrskonzert", Salute to Vienna returns for a glorious 14th season with a fresh, new program. A festive New Year's concert, featuring a brilliant new cast of over 75 musicians, stellar European singers and dancers in beautiful costumes, the performance is a lighthearted blend of popular Strauss waltzes, polkas and famous operetta excerpts from "Die Fledermaus", "The Merry Widow" and more. Something for everyone to enjoy!

Imre Kollár, conductor (Budapest)

Patricia Nessy, soprano (Vienna)

Wolfgang Gratschmaier, tenor (Vienna)

Dancers from Kiev-Aniko Ballet of Ukraine and International Champion Ballroom Dancers

Tues. Jan. 1, 2013 @ 8PM

 

A reigning virtuoso of the violin, Itzhak Perlman has appeared with every major orchestra and in recitals and festivals around the world. A major presence in the performing arts on television, Itzhak Perlman has been honored with four Emmy Awards and fifteen Grammy Awards. Sarasota holds a special place in Mr. Perlman's heart and Van Wezel patrons respond in kind-his shows always sell out!

Thurs. Mar. 14, 2013 @ 8 PM

 

Bravo Dance Series

Mesmerizing and imaginative, MOMIX spellbinds audiences across the globe. Since debuting MOMIX's newest creation Botanica in Italy last winter, it has played to packed houses and rave reviews around the world. Botanica, like other MOMIX creations, transports audiences from their everyday lives to a fantasy world through its trademark use of magical lighting and imagery.  In the endless search for another gravity, MOMIX combines athletic dance, riveting music, outrageous costumes, inventive props and pure talent to create an entertaining multimedia experience. Featuring an eclectic score ranging from birdsongs to Vivaldi, MOMIX dancer-illusionists conjure a world of surrealistic images using light, shadow, props, humor and the human body.

Tues. Jan. 22, 2013 @ 8 PM

 

Scattered combines Motionhouse's trademark highly physical dance theatre and mesmerizing aerial imagery with film and graphics, to create a unique visual performance event. Performed on a huge curved floor (think of a half pipe), which disappears skywards upstage, Scattered uses projection technology to create a world in which the dancers move in, on and through the image. Scattered delves into the majesty and savagery of water, a fundamental force in our lives as dancers plunge into an ocean, tumble down a waterfall, and slide on an avalanche to a frozen landscape. In Scattered Motionhouse is creating a startling interaction between film and live performance, where dancers glide in the air or rapidly move around the space using aerial silks and harnesses.

Tues. Jan. 29, 2013 @ 8 PM

 

Legendary Bolshoi principal dancer Elena Radchenko, founder of the Russian National Ballet Theatre has focused the Company on upholding the national tradition of the major Russian ballet works and developing new talents throughout Russia. With a repertory of virtually all of the great full length works of Petipa:  Don Quixote, La Bayadere, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Raymonda, Paquita, Coppelia and La Sylphide, as well as productions of The Nutcracker, Sylvia, and La Fille Mal Gardee, Russian National Ballet Theatre upholds the beauty and artistry of  the classics.

The Sleeping Beauty:

Full-length ballet in Three Acts

Music: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Choreography: Marius Petipa

Libretto: Marius Petipa and Ivan Vsevolojsky after stories by Charles Perrault

PROLOGUE

ACT I

The Spell

--Intermission--

ACT II, Scene One

The Vision

ACT II, Scene Two

The Awakening

ACT III

The Wedding

Sun. Feb. 24, 2013 @ 7 PM

 

For more than a decade, Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance has thrilled audiences around the world, leaving viewers breathless and clamoring for more. Michael Flatley's masterpiece is a magical adventure of sight and sound that transports to a mythical time and place, lifting the spirits and capturing the hearts of all who experience it. From the moment the lights go down to the last encore, audiences are spellbound by a combination of precision dancing, state of the art lighting, pyrotechnics, and a musical score. Based on Irish folklore, this classic tale of Good vs. Evil, expressed through the universal language of dance, has catapulted Irish dance to a new dimension.

Tues. Mar. 12, 2013 @ 8 PM

 

The sexy athleticism, exuberant personality and joyous movement that is Parsons Dance is comprised of ten full-time dancers and maintains a repertory of over 60 works (20 with commissioned scores) choreographed by David Parsons. The company's style is a fusion of the gesture and movement that make up the modern dance vocabulary, and the discipline and precise execution one expects from a classical company. Program to be announced.

Wed. Mar. 20 2013 @ 8 PM

 

Dance Specials

STOMP is explosive, provocative, sophisticated, utterly unique and appeals to audiences of all ages. The international percussion sensation has garnered an armful of awards and rave reviews, and has appeared on numerous national television shows. The eight-member troupe uses everything but conventional percussion instruments – matchboxes, wooden poles, brooms, garbage cans, Zippo lighters, hubcaps – to fill the stage with magnificent rhythms. 

Thurs. Jan. 3, 2013 @ 8 PM

 

TRACES combines awe-inspiring acrobatics with infectious urban energy. This modern brand of circus is infused with the energy of street performance.  The artists of TRACES employ every trick in the book-from music, dance, and illustration to skateboarding, basketball, and high-risk acrobatics-to make a lasting impression. TRACES is spectacularly anti-spectacle, relying instead on the fantastic abilities of the performers, individuals who appear to be nothing more than a group of friends, just as easygoing, affable, and potentially clumsy as the guy next door-until they unleash ninety minutes of heart-stopping acrobatics and unbridled energy that leave audiences breathless and exhilarated.

Wed. Feb. 6, 2013 @ 8 PM

 

For more information visit http://www.vanwezel.org/.

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