Tag Archives: Marcelo Lehninger

Hear live GR Symphony concerts on Blue Lake Radio every Sunday in May

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By Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk
Grand Rapids Symphony

Grand Rapids Symphony Music Director Marcelo Lehninger leads the Grand Rapids Symphony in its 2019-2020 opening performance. (Supplied) 

In this time of social distancing, we need music now more than ever. While concert halls, movie theaters, restaurants and pubs are closed, the Grand Rapids Symphonyis reaching into its archivesto bring you concerts performed live in DeVos Performance Hall.

Listen to Blue Lake Public Radioevery Sunday afternoon in May and hear your Grand Rapids Symphony in a past concert originally performed live and unedited, so it’s almost like being there in the audience in DeVos Hall.

Tune in at 1 p.m. Sundays to Blue Lake Radio at WBLU-FM 88.9in Grand Rapids or WBLV-FM 90.3in Muskegon or go online to Blue Lake Radio here.

Over the next four Sundays, you can hear music by Gustav Mahler, Piotr Tchaikovsky, Johannes Brahms and Frederic Chopin among other great composers plus such eminent soloists as Grand Rapids’ own Grammy winningmezzo soprano Michelle DeYoung; 2015 International Tchaikovsky CompetitionGold Medal-winning cellist Andrei Ioniță; Grand Rapids Symphony concertmaster and violinist James Crawford; and GRS Music Director Marcelo Lehninger’smother, pianist Sônia Goulart.

The Grand Rapids Symphony performs in DeVos Performance Hall. (Supplied)

Here’s the schedule for Grand Rapids Symphony concerts on Blue Lake Public Radio in May:

Sun., May 3 – Marcelo Conducts Mahler

Originally performed April 12-13, 2019

MAHLER:Symphony No. 3

Marcelo Lehninger, conductor 

Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano

Grand Rapids Symphony Women’s Chorus

One of his most popular orchestral works of all, Mahler’s sunny, Symphony No. 3 was named the “10thGreatest Symphony of All Time” in a poll of professional conductors for BBC Music Magazine. A lover of nature, Mahler spent summers in the countryside outside of Salzburg where he composed his Third Symphony in a tiny shed, built at the edge of a meadow, near the shore of a lake, with a view of the mountains beyond. Grammy Award-winning mezzo soprano Michelle DeYoung, who was born in Grand Rapids, is soloist in the work whose slow movement was arranged for a small orchestra and performed in New York City on the 10thanniversary of 9/11.

Sun., May 10 – Mother’s Day with Maestro

Originally performed May 17-18, 2019

RAVEL:Mother Goose Suite

CHOPIN:Concerto No. 2 for Piano

BRAHMS:Symphony No. 2

Marcelo Lehninger, conductor 

Sônia Goulart, piano

Marcelo Lehninger’s mother, pianist Sônia Goulart, joins her son to celebrate Mother’s Day 2019. One of the most prominent Brazilian artists of the past 30 years, Goulart makes her Grand Rapids debut performing Chopin’s Piano Concerto in F minor, an idiomatic and highly personal work that only could have been composed by one of the greatest pianists of all time. Johannes Brahms spent nearly 20 years struggling to compose his First Symphony. With that behind him, the great German Romantic composer dashed off his Symphony No. 2 while on a summer vacation. A friend who was among the first to hear it before its premiere told Brahms, “It is all rippling streams, blue sky, sunshine and cool green shadows.”

Sun. May 17 – All Tchaikovsky

Originally performed February 8, 2019

TCHAIKOVSKY:At Bedtime

TCHAIKOVSKY:Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello and orchestra, Op. 33

TCHAIKOVSKY:Nocturne for cello and orchestra

TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 4

Marcelo Lehninger, conductor 

Andrei Ioniță, cello 

Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus

Tchaikovsky was one of the greatest composers of melody who ever lived. In his late 30s, the unabashed romantic truly hit his stride. In just four years from 1875 to 1879, Tchaikovsky premiered his First Piano Concerto, his Violin Concerto in D Major, his ballet Swan Lake, and his opera Eugene Onegin.Nestled among these are his deeply emotional, fateful Symphony No. 4 and his exquisite Variations on a Rococo Theme. Andrei Ioniță, winner of the Gold Medal at the 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition, is soloist in Tchaikovsky’s only major work for cello and orchestra.

Sun. May 24 – Elgar’s Enigma Variations

Originally performed March 1-2, 2019

SAWYERS:Valley of Vision(US Premiere)

WALTON: Concerto for Violin

ELGAR: Enigma Variations 

David Lockington, conductor

James Crawford, violin

The British are coming, the British are coming, led by English-born conductor David Lockington.

Edward Elgar mysteriously composed each of his 14 Enigma Variationswith a particular friend in mind. The exquisite “Nimrod” Variation, performed for the opening of the 2012 Olympic Games in London, is heard at the end of the 2017 film Dunkirk. James Crawford, Concertmaster of the Grand Rapids Symphony, is soloist on William Walton’s Concerto for Violin, written for and premiered by the great American virtuoso Jascha Heifetz. Grand Rapids Symphony has previously performed several works by Philip Sawyers, a childhood friend of Lockington’s.

Sun. May 31 – Brahms’ Symphony No. 4

Originally performed Oct. 24-25, 2014

PONCHIELLI: Il Convegno

BRAHMS: Symphony No. 4

Kynan Johns, guest conductor

David Shiffrin, clarinet

Suzanna Dennis Bratton, clarinet

Composed at the height of his career as a composer, Brahms’ Symphony No. 4 was an immediate hit at its premiere in October 1885. Much like Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and Schubert’s “Great” Symphony, Brahms’ last symphony has achieved the immortality and enduring popularity of the final symphonies of those composers. The 19thcentury composer Amilcare Ponchielli is little remembered today apart his “Dance of the Hours” from his opera La Giaconda. But the prolific Italian composer wrote many works for orchestra and bands including Il Convegno, a virtuoso showpiece for two clarinetists, featuring dazzling technical brilliance from both guest clarinetist David Shiffrin and GRS principal clarinetist Suzy Bratton.

Three from Grand Rapids Symphony named honorary Festival of the Arts co-chairs

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Festival of the Arts is excited to announce its honorary co-chairs for the event’s 51st year – Grand Rapids Symphony’s President Mary Tuuk, Music Director Marcelo Lehninger, and Associate Conductor John Varineau. For the next year, the three will serve as ambassadors for the community-wide celebration of arts and culture that returns in June 2020.

Festival of the Arts unveiled the appointment on Friday, June 7, the first day of the three-day, showcase of art, music, dance and more, including a performance by the Grand Rapids Youth Symphony under conductor John Varineau.

The Grand Rapids Symphony’s leadership team follows the Grand Rapids Ballet’s Glenn Del Vecchio, Executive Director, and James Sofranko, Artistic Director, who served as honorary co-chairs for the 50th anniversary Festival of the Arts.

Marcelo Lehninger, the musical director of the Grand Rapids Symphony, on stage. (Grand Rapids Symphony)

The run up to Festival of the Arts 2020 coincides with the Grand Rapids Symphony’s 90th anniversary season in 2019-20.

“I’m thrilled to have Grand Rapids Symphony back for Festival of the Arts in 2020 and to have their leaders involved as honorary co-chairs,” said David Abbott, Executive Director for Festival of the Arts. “Festival remains grateful for the Youth Symphony for their continued performance and looks forward to the professional company joining in on the fun.”

“Marcelo is already formulating some surprises that we know will wow the community,” Abbott said.

Grand Rapids Symphony’s President Mary Tuuk (Grand Rapids Symphony)

Mary Tuuk, a Grand Rapids native and Calvin College graduate, joined the Grand Rapids Symphony as President and CEO earlier this year following a long career in banking for Fifth Third Bank and in retail for Meijer, Inc.

Marcelo Lehninger, a native of Brazil, is completing his third season as Music Director of the Grand Rapids Symphony. Last year, he led the Grand Rapids Symphony in its critically acclaimed return to New York City for a performance in Carnegie Hall.

John Varineau, who is in his 34th season on the conducting staff of the Grand Rapids Symphony, has served as conductor of the Grand Rapids Youth Symphony for the past 31 seasons.

“Festival of the Arts has a special place in our hearts as it does in yours as well,” Tuuk said. “Since childhood, I’ve known that, in Grand Rapids, summer in the city truly begins with Festival.”

Grand Rapids Symphony Associate Conduction John Varineau (Grand Rapids Symphony)

Fifty years ago, Alexander Calder’s 43-foot tall, 42-ton stabile, “La Grande Vitesse,” was installed in downtown Grand Rapids as the fledgling National Endowment for the Arts’ first work of public art. Former Congressman Gerald R. Ford, who later became 38th President of the United States, was instrumental in securing the $45,000 grant in 1967.

For its dedication on June 14, 1969, the Grand Rapids Symphony performed music by George Gershwin and Charles Ives, and the orchestra gave the premiere performance of a piece titled “Inaugural Fanfare” commissioned for the occasion by Aaron Copland.

The Grand Rapids Symphony or its musicians, performing as soloists or in smaller ensembles, have been a part of Festival of the Arts for most of the past five decades. Next year, musicians of the orchestra will perform in some capacity for the annual event that’s open for free to the entire community.

The Board of Directors of Festival of the Arts last year decided to follow a new process for honorary co-chairs beginning with Grand Rapids Ballet’s Del Vecchio and Sofranko. In order to re-connect with the arts institutions of the region, Festival is looking to select leaders from partnering arts institutions in future years. The honorary co-chairs will serve as ambassadors to the community encouraging engagement for the event and also serve as conduit to all the other arts institutions in the region for solicitation of performers and artists.

Wege Foundation awards Grand Rapids Symphony $1 million grant

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By Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk

Grand Rapids Symphony

 

The Wege Foundation has awarded the Grand Rapids Symphony a four-year grant worth more than $1 million to enhance initiatives in diversity, equity and inclusion to engage a broader audience and share live orchestral music with everyone in its community.

 

With help from the Wege Foundation, the Grand Rapids Symphony is creating a 21st century orchestra to serve a 21st century audience that’s made up, not just of classical music lovers, but of the entirecommunity.

 

Money will add new positions, create new concerts and events, and develop new educational opportunities alongside the Grand Rapids Symphony’s Gateway to Music, a matrix of 17 education and access programs that already reach 86,000 children, students and adults across 13 counties in West Michigan.

 

Music is supposed to be for everyone, and that includes music presented by symphony orchestras, according to Grand Rapids Symphony Music Director Marcelo Lehninger.

 

“Sometime people feel they don’t belong,” Lehninger said. “But I have a passion and a mission to reach the hearts and souls of everyone in this community. We’re trying to show them that, yes, they do belong.Hopefully, they’ll understand that it’s their orchestra, too.”

 

Marcelo Lehninger, GRS Music Director

The Wege Foundation’s total package of $1.1 million over four years will nurture the Grand Rapids Symphony by weaving diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives into all of the orchestra’s activities.

 

“A symphony orchestra in the 21st century has become a service organization,” Lehninger said. “We’rehere not only to entertain our audience but also to serve our community.

 

Thanks to the Wege Foundation, the Grand Rapids Symphony will expand opportunities for more people to engage with orchestral music.

 

“The Wege Foundation is pleased to support the Symphony in enhancing the diversity of itsprogramming, musicians and staff, as well as the inclusivity of its outreach,” said Wege Foundation President Mark Van Putten. “By transforming itself the Symphony can help transform West Michiganin enduring ways that reach beyond the performing arts.”

 

President Peter M. Perez called the Wege Foundation grant “truly transformational.”

 

“In the past, a symphony orchestra’s goal was to perform great works of classical music. Today, theGrand Rapids Symphony aspires, not just to play music for the community, but to make music together with its community,” Perez said. “Truly serving our entire community means we have to genuinely and faithfully be a reflection of everyone in the community.”

Grand Rapids Symphony’s Mosaic Scholar program

Past successes in collaborating with community partners include the Grand Rapids Symphony’sSymphony with Soul concert, launched in 2002, and Celebration of Soul dinner and awards ceremony, which has fostered connections between the orchestra and West Michigan’s African-American community for more than a dozen years.

 

Though the Grand Rapids Symphony touches the lives of 200,000 attendees per year, many more in West Michigan have never experienced great orchestral music performed live.

 

“The Grand Rapids Symphony is a community resource that provides a venue for all community members to enjoy the art of the symphony and to come together as a community to do so. This grant willprovide the resources to make it happen,” said Paul Doyle, founder and CEO of Inclusive Performance Strategies, which develops and implements progressive organizational transformation.

 

Three years ago, the Grand Rapids Symphony launched Symphony Scorecard to open its concert hall doors to a wider audience by providing free tickets to those with financial challenges or economic barriers. Since 2015, the program launched with funding from the Daniel and Pamella DeVos Foundation has supplied more than 8,000 free tickets to members of the community who receive financial assistance from the state or to the families of men and women serving in the U.S. Military on active, reserve or guard duty.

 

Grand Rapids Symphony Musical Instrument Petting Zoo

Opening doors and extending an invitation can be life changing, said Doyle, who grew up in Brooklyn and was introduced to classical music by his grandmother, who originally was from Trinidad. Doyle was in third grade when he attended his first concert in New York City’s Carnegie Hall, where the Grand Rapids Symphony recently performed. Doyle later played French horn through high school.

 

“Our community in Grand Rapids is growing. It’s exploding. But how do we make sure that everyone feels a part of it?” Doyle said. “We know the ‘why.’ This is working on the ‘how.’

 

Thanks to the Wege grant, the symphony’s next steps will be to take the orchestra out of the concert hall and into the neighborhood with a series of concerts and engagement events both large and small that foster authentic artistic and cultural expression by diverse communities within the larger community.

 

Community concerts begin in July with a free, outdoor concert in John Ball Park. Associate conductor John Varineau will lead a program of light classical music, featuring local special guests, at 7 p.m. on Saturday, July 21 in the park on the West Side of downtown Grand Rapids adjacent to John Ball Zoo. Future concerts will be held in familiar venues in other neighborhoods in the city.

 

Planning is underway to develop a series of neighborhood events that later will merge into a centralized major event, similar to Grand Rapids Symphony’s wildly successful LiveArts, which drew more than 7,000 people to the Van Andel Arena in 2015 for an evening of multicultural, multi-genre entertainment.

 

But the Wege grant also will transform the orchestra from within through new positions in the organization. Funds will establish:

 

A Community Engagement position on staff to develop, manage and coordinate all Grand RapidsSymphony activities to serve an audience that’s growing more diverse every day.

 

A Musician Fellow who will perform with the Grand Rapids Symphony. During the two-year fellowship, the musician will be mentored by GRS musicians and gain practical experience toward launching a career as a professional musician.

 

The Wege Grant also will fund the expansion of the Grand Rapids Symphony’s successful Mosaic Scholarship program, a mentoring program for African-American and Latino music students, created with funding by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Teens ages 13 to 18 are provided with musical instruments and private lessons with GRS musicians along with opportunities to perform and to attend concerts. A new component, Mosaic Music Majors, will collaborate with music students of color in local universities and colleges to mentor, advise and develop the skills and talents of musicians of color seeking to become professional musicians.

 

Over the next four years, the Wege grant will be a game changer for the Grand Rapids Symphony, according to Associate Conductor John Varineau, who just completed his 33rd season on staff with the Grand Rapids Symphony.

 

“It’s going to change the way we ‘do business’ and the way we approach all of our already outstandingartistic products. Without compromising our lofty artistic vision, and without sacrificing our dedication to the best in our symphonic heritage, I am confident that, with the help of the Wege Foundation, the GrandRapids Symphony is going to look and sound differently,” Varineau said. “In just a few short years, howand what we present will be even more representative of the entire Grand Rapids community so thateveryone will be able to truthfully call us ‘our Grand Rapids Symphony.’”

 

The challenge is to create and sustain intentional relationship building so that the wider community notonly participates in Grand Rapids Symphony’s activities, it also sees that it plays a role in supporting and providing for the orchestra.

 

“The key to this work is continuous commitment and effort. It’s about progressive improvement, not postponed perfection,” Doyle said. “I think we have the opportunity to create a best-practice model. For Grand Rapids to be on the front end of enhancing quality of life and community, I think is very cool.”

 

In the end, the goal is to have an orchestra in Grand Rapids that’s of the community, by the communityand for the community.

 

“The Grand Rapids Symphony is your symphony, and it’s my symphony,” Perez said. “And by workingtogether, we can make it our symphony.”

Beethoven’s epic Ninth Symphony concludes Grand Rapids Symphony’s 2017-18 season

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Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus

ByJeffrey Kaczmarczyk

Grand Rapids Symphony

 

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 is one of the greatest achievements, not only in classical music, but in all of Western culture.

 

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Leonard Bernstein on Christmas Day conducted an international orchestra in performances of Beethoven’s Ninth in East Berlin that was televised throughout the world.

 

Sopano Jessica Rivera

Beethoven’s last symphony and his only symphony to use voices began as a defiant statement of freedom hurled at the repressive monarchies of Europe. Today, “Ode to Joy,” from the finale of Beethoven’sNinth Symphony, is the official anthem of the European Union. It’s not hard to see why.

 

“We should all be friends and get along and respect each other and fight together for a common goal,”said Grand Rapids Symphony Music Director Marcelo Lehninger of Beethoven’s Ninth. “What an incredible piece of music.”

 

Grand Rapids Symphony ends its 2017-18 season with Beethoven’s Ninth at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, May 18-19, in DeVos Performance Hall.

 

Mezzo–soprano Susan Platts

Lehninger will lead soprano Jessica Rivera, mezzo-soprano Susan Platts, tenor John Matthew Myers and baritone Richard Zeller plus the Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus in the 10th and final concerts of the 2017-18 Richard and Helen DeVos Classical series. Guest artist sponsor is the Edith I. Blodgett Guest Artist Fund. Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus Sponsor is Mary Tuuk.

 

The piece is an emotional journey from darkness to light, from minor to major from chaos to order.

 

Tenor John Matthew Myers

“When I conduct Beethoven’s Ninth, I’m always immersed in these emotions,” Lehninger said. “Beethoven’s music does that like no other.”

 

The concerts also will include two contemporary pieces inspired by Beethoven. The concert opens with Variações Temporais, Beethoven Revisitado (Temporal Variations, Beethoven Revisited) by Brazilian composer Ronaldo Miranda, a witty, series of short, orchestral portraits, each inspired by another of Beethoven’s musical works. In 2014, Lehninger conducted the world premiere with the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra in Brazil.

 

Baritone Richard Zeller

Rounding out the program will be the world premiere of Testament by Grand Rapids composer Alexander L. Miller, who also is assistant principal oboist of the Grand Rapids Symphony.

 

Commissioned by the Grand Rapids Symphony, Testament, Beethoven’s 1802 “Heiligenstadt Testament” for Bass-Baritone, Chorus and Orchestra, takes its text from a letter that Beethoven wrote in 1802 to his brothers, expressing his anger and frustration at losing his hearing. Though he considers suicide, Beethoven declares he will live on for the sake of the music he has yet to write.

 

It’s also a letter that Beethoven never sent. It was discovered among his private papers following his death in 1827.

 

The concerts will be the first time Lehninger has conducted the Grand Rapids Symphony in one of Beethoven’s nine symphonies. It won’t be the last.

 

“One of my goals is to work in one or two Beethoven symphonies every season,” Lehninger said.

 

The story of the first performance of Beethoven’s “Choral” Symphony No. 9 in D minor is one of the legendary stories of music history. At the premiere in May 1824, Beethoven, with his back to the audience, stood near the conductor, giving tempos and following the score. When the performance ended, the alto soloist approached Beethoven and turned him around so that he could see the enthusiastic applause he no longer could hear.

 

    • Inside the Music, a free, pre-concert, multi-media presentation sponsored by BDO USA, will be held before each performance at 7 p.m. in the DeVos Place Recital Hall.
    • The complete Beethoven’s Ninth program will be rebroadcast on Sunday, June 3, 2018, at 1 p.m. on Blue Lake Public Radio 88.9 FM or 90.3 FM.

 

Tickets are available at the DeVos Place ticket office, weekdays 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. or on the day of the concert beginning two hours prior to the performance. Tickets also may be purchased online at GRSymphony.org.

 

Full-time students of any age are able to purchase tickets for only $5 on the night of the concert by enrolling in the GRS Student Tickets program, sponsored by Comerica and Calvin College. This is a MySymphony360 eligible concert.

World-renowned Polish pianist joins Grand Rapids Symphony for Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1

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Guest pianist Rafał Blechacz will perform 8 pm Friday and Saturday, April 27-28, in DeVos Performance Hall.

By Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk, Grand Rapids Symphony

 

Music lovers and concert goers often ask classical musicians to name their favorite composer. Typically, the answer leads to the music of whomever they’re currently rehearsing or performing. Or to composers who wrote often or wrote well for their chosen instrument.

 

For conductors whose job it is to see the big picture, the answer sometimes is surprising.

 

“Often people ask me who my favorite composer is. I don’t know how to answer that,” said Grand Rapids Symphony Music Director Marcelo Lehninger. “But if I were going to a desert island, and I had to choose one composer, I probably would pick Chopin.”

 

That might come as a surprise because, while figures such as Maurice Ravel and Richard Strauss were great composers as well as great orchestrators, Frédéric Chopin was a great composer whose skills at arranging for orchestra were, at best, only adequate.

 

Yet the Polish-born musician, one of the greatest pianists of all time, revolutionized composition and piano performance to a degree that no one else has ever done.

 

“He completely changed the way you play the instrument,” said Lehninger, a pianist. “No one else, not even Paganini, did that for his instrument, the violin.”

 

Grand Rapids Symphony celebrates the music of Chopin with guest pianist Rafał Blechacz at 8 pm Friday and Saturday, April 27-28, in DeVos Performance Hall. The program titled Chopin & Dvořák is part of the 2018 Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, centered in Kalamazoo.

 

Joining the Grand Rapids Symphony for Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 is Blechacz, the 2014 Gilmore Artist of the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival. Guest artist sponsor is the Edith I. Blodgett Guest Artist Fund.

 

The concert is in partnership with the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival. Concert Sponsor is Merrill Lynch.

 

The ninth concerts of the 2017-18 Richard and Helen DeVos Classical series also include Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8 in G Major. It opens with Canto, a brief work by contemporary American composer Adam Schoenberg.

 

Joining the Grand Rapids Symphony for Chopin’s Piano Concerto in E minor is Polish pianist Rafał Blechacz, the 2014 Gilmore Artist of the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival. The concert is in partnership with the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival. Guest artist sponsor is the Edith I. Blodgett Guest Artist Fund.

 

Not only is Blechacz a fellow Pole, he was the winner of the 15th International Chopin Competition in 2005, becoming the first Polish pianist to win the competition since Krystian Zimerman in 1975.

 

And not only did Blechacz win the top prize, he won all four of the additional prizes for best performance of a polonaise, a mazurka, a sonata, and a concerto with orchestra. No other pianist in the 91-year history of the event, held once every five years in Warsaw, has ever captured every award in the competition.

 

Lehninger, who made his Grand Rapids Symphony debut in February 2015 conducting Dvorak’s popular Symphony No. 9 “From the New World,” will lead the Grand Rapids Symphony in Antonin Dvorak’s sunny Symphony No. 8

 

The concerts open with Adam Schoenberg’s Canto, which in Italian means “I sing.” One of the most frequently-heard composers in today’s concert halls, Schoenberg composed the brief work as a lullaby in honor his son, Luca, who was born in 2013.

  • Inside the Music, a free, pre-concert, multi-media presentation sponsored by BDO USA, will be held before each performance at 7 p.m. in the DeVos Place Recital Hall.
  • The complete Chopin & Dvorak program will be rebroadcast on Sunday, May 28, 2018, at 1 p.m. on Blue Lake Public Radio 88.9 FM or 90.3 FM.
Tickets

Tickets start at $18 and are available at the GRS box office, weekdays 9 am-5 pm, at 300 Ottawa Ave. NW, Suite 100, (located across from the Calder Plaza), or by calling 616.454.9451 x 4. (Phone orders will be charged a $2 per ticket service fee, with a $12 maximum.)

 

Tickets are available at the DeVos Place ticket office, weekdays 10 am-6 pm or on the day of the concert beginning two hours prior to the performance. Tickets also may be purchased online at GRSymphony.org.

 

Full-time students of any age are able to purchase tickets for only $5 on the night of the concert by enrolling in the GRS Student Tickets program, sponsored by Comerica and Calvin College. This is a MySymphony360 eligible concert.

Hear GR Symphony’s Carnegie Hall concert, with Ravel’s Bolero, April 13-14 in DeVos Hall

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Pianist Nelson Freire will perform with the Grand Rapids Symphony April 13-14 and again at Carnegie Hall April 20. (Photo by Mat Hennek)

By Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk

Grand Rapids Symphony

 

Nearly 13 years ago, the Grand Rapids Symphony made its critically acclaimed debut in New York City’s Carnegie Hall, a performance praised by the New York Times and that elevated the orchestra’s reputation in the eyes of its community and in the classical music world at large.

 

On April 20, the Grand Rapids Symphony plus the Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus and a world-renowned pianist will return to Carnegie Hall for an astounding evening of Spanish and Brazilian-flavored music. But first, you can hear the entire program in DeVos Hall on Friday and Saturday, April 13-14.

 

Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire, one of the world’s greatest pianists, will be soloist in Momoprecoce by Brazilian’s most famous composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos. The boisterous fantasy for piano and orchestra is inspired by children at play during Carnival. Here’s a YouTube video of Freire performing “Momoprecoce” with Brazil’s most important orchestra, the Sao Paulo Symphony, on tour with American conductor Marin Alsop in London.

 

Freire also will play Manuel de Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain, a sensuous piece whose inspiration comes from the same region in southern Spain that influenced Anila Quayyum Agha’s “Intersections,” winner of Grand Rapids’ ArtPrize in 2014.

 

Grand Rapids Symphony’s Brazilian-born conductor Marcelo Lehninger leads the orchestra in Maurice Ravel’s Bolero, back by popular demand. The Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus will join the orchestra for Villa-Lobos’ Villa-Lobos Chôros No.10 “Rasga o Coração” (It Tears your Heart) a piece that’s inspired by music of the streets of Brazil in the 1920s and 30s.

 

Freire, who has performed four times in Carnegie Hall, is a lifelong friend of the Lehninger family. Lehninger, who led the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall in 2011, has performed “Momoprecoce” previously with Freire and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood.

 

Tickets

 

Tickets start at $18 and are available at the GRS box office, weekdays 9 am-5 pm, at 300 Ottawa Ave. NW, Suite 100, (located across from the Calder Plaza), or by calling 616.454.9451 x 4. (Phone orders will be charged a $2 per ticket service fee, with a $12 maximum.)

 

Tickets are available at the DeVos Place ticket office, weekdays 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. or on the day of the concert beginning two hours prior to the performance. Tickets also may be purchased online at GRSymphony.org.

 

Full-time students of any age are able to purchase tickets for only $5 on the night of the concert by enrolling in the GRS Student Tickets program, sponsored by Comerica and Calvin College. This is a MySymphony360 eligible concert.

Grand Rapids Symphony performs an evening of Tchaikovsky to welcome the New Year

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Note: Video is from South China Morning Post

 

By Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk

Grand Rapids Symphony

 

At the height of the Cold War in October 1957, the former Soviet Union sent Sputnik into orbit, the first shot in the race for space. Six months later, a lanky, 23-year-old Texan fired back on behalf of the United States.

 

In Moscow before a Russian audience, Van Cliburn gave dazzling performances of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 to win the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Competition.

 

Pianist Gabriela Montero (Photo by Shelley Mosman)

Cliburn returned home to a ticker-tape parade in New York City, a cover story in Time magazine and a recording contract from RCA Victor. Soon, his Grammy Award-winning recording of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto became the first classical recording in the world to sell 1 million copies, helping the concerto become an all-time favorite among audiences.

 

In January, Grand Rapids Symphony returns to DeVos Performance Hall with an All-Tchaikovsky concert including the perennially popular piano concerto.

 

Music Director Marcelo Lehninger leads the orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 and in the Polonaise from Tchaikovsky’s opera, Eugene Onegin, at 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 12-13, in DeVos Performance Hall.

 

Guest pianist Gabriela Montero will be soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 for the fourth concerts of the 2017-18 Richard and Helen DeVos Classical series. Guest artist sponsor is the Edith I. Blodgett Guest Artist Fund.

 

The Latin Grammy Award-winning pianist and twice Grammy nominated artist, who performed at the inauguration of President Barack Obama in 2008, won the Bronze Medal at the 13th International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1995.

 

A native of Caracas, Venezuela, Montero gave her first public performance at age 5. Three years later, she made her concert debut with the Simon Bolívar Youth Orchestra, earning a scholarship from the Venezuelan government to study in the United States. At age 12, she won the Baldwin National Competition and AMSA Young Artist International Piano Competition, leading to a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

 

In addition to her interpretations of classical masterworks, Montero is celebrated as a brilliant improviser, a skill that’s almost disappeared among contemporary classical pianists. A fearless barnstormer who often extemporizes on musical themes suggested by the audience, her improvisations astonish listeners for their craftsmanship and clarity as well as their complexity.

 

Montero began improvising at the piano at age 4. For many years, she kept her improvisational forays a secret. The world-famous Argentinian pianist Martha Argerich encouraged her to do it in public.

 

“At that point I made the decision,” Montero told the British newspaper The Independent in 2010. “I’m a classical artist and if the classical world shuns me because I improvise, then that’s a risk I have to take, because I have to show myself exactly as I am.”

 

Montero has been heard on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today” show, improvising on melodies called in by listeners. Montero also has been profiled on CBS TV’s “60 Minutes” in December 2006.

 

Her 2006 recording “Bach and Beyond” for EMI, a recording entirely of her improvisation on themes of J.S. Bach, held the top spot on the Billboard Classical Charts for several months. Two years later, her follow-up CD, “Baroque,” garnered a Grammy Award nomination.

 

Montero won the 2015 Latin Grammy Award for Best Classical Album for her debut recording as pianist performing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, as composer of an original work, “Ex Patria,” and as an improviser.

 

  • Inside the Music, a free, pre-concert, multi-media presentation sponsored by BDO USA, will be held before each performance at 7 p.m. in the DeVos Place Recital Hall.
  • The complete All Tchaikovsky program will be rebroadcast on Sunday, April 8, 2018, at 1 p.m. on Blue Lake Public Radio 88.9 FM or 90.3 FM.       

Tickets

 

Tickets start at $18 and are available at the GRS box office, weekdays 9 am-5 pm, at 300 Ottawa Ave. NW, Suite 100, (located across from the Calder Plaza), or by calling 616.454.9451 x 4. (Phone orders will be charged a $2 per ticket service fee, with a $12 maximum.)

 

Tickets are available at the DeVos Place ticket office, weekdays 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. or on the day of the concert beginning two hours prior to the performance. Tickets also may be purchased online at GRSymphony.org.

 

Full-time students of any age are able to purchase tickets for only $5 on the night of the concert by enrolling in the GRS Student Ticketsprogram, sponsored by Comerica and Calvin College. This is a MySymphony360 eligible concert.

GR Symphony welcomes new year with Romantic Serenades

Entertainment, , , ,

Grand Rapids Symphony Music Director Marcelo Lehninger leads the symphony in the Jan. 5 performance of music of Tchaikovsky and Dvorak. (Photo by Terry Johnston)

By Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk

Grand Rapids Symphony

 

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Antonin Dvořák flourished in another time and place, in a world before cars and planes, telephones and television.

 

In the very same era, nine prominent women of Grand Rapids banded together in 1883 to found St. Cecilia Music Center, to promote the study and appreciation of music.

 

Grand Rapids Symphony returns to historic 19th century St. Cecilia Music Center and the elegant splendor of Royce Auditorium for The Romantic Concert: Dvořák & Tchaikovsky on Friday, Jan. 5.

 

Music Director Marcelo Lehninger leads the Crowe Horwath Great Eras concert at 8 p.m. in St. Cecilia Music Center, 24 Ransom Ave. NW

 

Highlights of the evening concert will be given at 10 a.m. that morning for The Romantic Coffee Concert, part of the Porter Hills Coffee Classics series, a one-hour program held without intermission. Doors open at 9 a.m. for complementary coffee and pastry.

 

The Grand Rapids Symphony itself is the star of the show with music including Dvořák’s Serenade for Wind Instruments, Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, and a Brass Sextet in E-flat minor by Oskar Böhme.

 

“It shows off each section of the orchestra, strings, winds and brass,” Lehninger said.

 

Dvořák, who drew from folk music of his native Bohemia, was inspired by the Old-World atmosphere of the late 18th century when he composed his Serenade for Wind Instruments in 1878.

 

An excerpt from its third movement is heard in the 2004 film Iron Jawed Angels, starring Hilary Swank as suffragist leader Alice Paul along with Frances O’Connor, Julia Ormond and Anjelica Huston

 

Tchaikovsky, who loved the music of Mozart above all other composers, paid homage to the German composer in the first movement of his Serenade for Strings, composed in 1881, two years before St. Cecilia Music Society was founded.

 

The waltz in its second movement was adapted for singer and orchestra and used in the 1945 MGM film Anchors Aweigh. Kathryn Grayson sang the song titled “From the Heart of a Lonely Poet.”

The complete The Romantic Concert: Dvořák & Tchaikovsky program will be rebroadcast on Sunday, April 1, 2018, at 1 p.m. on Blue Lake Public Radio 88.9 FM or 90.3 FM.

 

Tickets

 

Tickets start at $26 for the Great Eras series and $16 for Coffee Classics and are available at the GRS ticket office, weekdays 9 am-5 pm at 300 Ottawa Ave. NW, Suite 100, (located across from the Calder Plaza), or by calling 616.454.9451 x 4. (Phone orders will be charged a $2 per ticket service fee, with a $12 maximum.)

 

Tickets are available at the DeVos Place box office, weekdays 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., or at the door on the day of the concert prior to the performance. Tickets also may be purchased online at GRSymphony.org

 

Full-time students of any age are able to purchase tickets for only $5 on the night of the concert by enrolling in the GRS Student Ticketsprogram, sponsored by Comerica and Calvin College. This is a MySymphony360 eligible concert.

GR Symphony presents Verdi’s monumental Requiem Nov. 17 and 18

Citizen Journalism, Entertainment, , , , ,

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By Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk

Grand Rapids Symphony

 

One of the best operas Giuseppe Verdi ever wrote calls for no costumes or sets. And one of his best-known sacred works is seldom performed in church. What’s more, both are one in the same.

 

Verdi’s Requiem has no operatic adventures involving heroes and villains, but it still features some of the most dramatic music ever written by the composer of Rigoletto, La Traviata, Otello and Aida.

 

Grand Rapids Symphony Music Director Marcelo Lehninger says the work that’s popular with audiences is a particular favorite of his as well.

 

“It’s one of the pieces I enjoy conducting the most,” he said.

 

Lehninger, who is in his second season with the Grand Rapids Symphony, will lead the third concert of the 2017-18 Richard and Helen DeVos Classical series at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, November 17-18, in DeVos Performance Hall, 303 Monroe Ave. NW.

 

Guest soprano Julianna Di Giacomo, mezzo soprano Suzanne Hendrix, tenor Anthony Dean Griffey and bass Raymond Aceto Guest artist sponsor is the Edith I. Blodgett Guest Artist Fund.

 

The 140-voice Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus will be joined by the 40-voice Calvin College Capella, both directed by Pearl Shangkuan, a professor of music at Calvin College.

 

All told, there will be upwards of 270 musicians on stage for the performances.

 

Concerts on Friday and Saturday will be dedicated to the memory of Helen DeVos, the Grand Rapids Symphony’s dear friend and greatest champion, who died in October. A member of the Symphony’s Board of Directors for nearly 20 years and an honorary board member afterwards, Helen DeVos had been awarded the Grand Rapids Symphony’s highest honor, its BRAVO! Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007.

 

Grand Rapids Symphony musicians and staff will wear yellow ribbons in Mrs. DeVos’s memory. Music Director Marcelo Lehninger and the symphony’s principal first and second violins and principal viola and cello, which together comprise the Grand Rapids Symphony’s DeVos String Quartet, all will wear yellow rose boutonnieres or corsages at both performances.

 

Verdi, who was spiritual, but not a regular churchgoer, poured his most mature vocal and dramatic gifts into his Requiem. The traditional Mass for the Dead in the Roman Catholic liturgy takes its title from the opening phrase, “Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,” which translates as, “Grant them eternal rest, O Lord.”

 

Verdi began the work to honor his operatic colleague, Gioachino Rossini, though he never completed it. Years later, Verdi finished the piece to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of Italian poet and novelist Alessandro Manzoni.

 

In Verdi’s mind, a big man needed a big sendoff, so he composed a work for double chorus, no fewer than 16 brass instruments, and a pounding bass drum that never goes away.

 

Portions of the 85 minute-work are well-known in popular culture. The dramatic “Die Irae” or “Day of Wrath” sequence is among the loudest musical moments in the orchestra repertoire. It’s frequently heard in movies, on TV and in commercials including the films “Mad Max: Fury Road” in 2015 and “Django Unchained” in 2012 and in the TV series “X Factor.”

 

Grand Rapids Symphony last performed Verdi’s Requiem in May 2010 to end its 2009-10 season.

 

Prior to that, the Grand Rapids Symphony sang Verdi’s Requiem in November 2001, just weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which gave added poignancy to the “Libre Me” section, with its first line that translates as “Deliver me, O Lord, from death eternal on that fateful day.”

 

  • Inside the Music, a free, pre-concert, multi-media presentation sponsored by BDO USA, will be held before each performance at 7 p.m. in the DeVos Place Recital Hall.
  • The complete Verdi’s Requiem program will be rebroadcast on Sunday, March 25, 2018, at 1 p.m. on Blue Lake Public Radio 88.9 FM or 90.3 FM.

Tickets

 

Tickets start at $18 and are available at the GRS box office, weekdays 9 am-5 pm, at 300 Ottawa Ave. NW, Suite 100, (located across from the Calder Plaza), or by calling 616.454.9451 x 4. (Phone orders will be charged a $2 per ticket service fee, with a $12 maximum.)

 

Tickets are available at the DeVos Place ticket office, weekdays 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. or on the day of the concert beginning two hours prior to the performance. Tickets also may be purchased online at GRSymphony.org.

 

Full-time students of any age are able to purchase tickets for only $5 on the night of the concert by enrolling in the GRS Student Ticketsprogram, sponsored by Comerica and Calvin College. This is a MySymphony360 eligible concert.

Tickets now on sale for the 2017 D&W Fresh Market Picnic Pops

Citizen Journalism, Entertainment, , , , , , , ,

By Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk

The Grand Rapids Pops will rock your world in more ways than one at the 2017 D&W Fresh Market Picnic Pops.

Three weeks of classic rock, including a brand-new show, Women Rock, with the music of Tina Turner, Carole King, Aretha Franklin and more, are part of the 2017 D&W Fresh Market Picnic Pops season at Cannonsburg Ski Area. The season opens July 13-14 with The Music of ABBA starring Arrival from Sweden.

“It’ll be a joyously, infectious opening night. Everything about it is fun,” said Principal Pops Conductor Bob Bernhardt, who will be a big part of the summer season.

The summer of rock continues July 20-21 with The Musical Legacy of Chicago featuring Brass Transit.

The three-concert series ends July 27-28 with Women Rock, a brand-new show that pays homage to some of the biggest stars and best-known female singers of the past 50 years with songs including Carole King’s I Feel The Earth Move, Tina Turner’s What’s Love Got To Do With It, Aretha Franklin’s Freeway of Love, Janis Joplin’s Piece Of My Heart, Pat Benatar’s Hit Me With Your Best Shot, and Heart’s These Dreams.

Classical Fireworks on Friday, Aug. 3, welcomes Grand Rapids Symphony Music Director Marcelo Lehninger to the podium for his debut at Cannonsburg. Lehninger will lead the orchestra in audience favorites including Copland’s “Hoedown” from Appalachian Spring, the finale from Dvorak’s “From the New World” Symphony No. 9, and Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.

Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán, dubbed the world’s best mariachi band, ends the season on Saturday, Aug. 5.

For more info and to purchase tickets, go here.

 

Review: GR Symphony, Lehninger offers perfect ‘Pictures’, alluring Barber adagio

Entertainment, Reviews, ,

Marcelo Lehninger, the musical director of the Grand Rapids Symphony, on stage from a previous concert. (Courtesy of the Grand Rapids Symphony)

By K.D. Norris

ken@wktv.org

60-second Review

Grand Rapids Symphony, March 3, at DeVos Performance Hall, Grand Rapids, Mi.

First, of course, Maurice Ravel’s orchestration of “Pictures at an Exhibition” was suburb with Marcelo Lehninger conducting the Grand Rapids Symphony. But then I am biased, owning three recordings of the work: Mussorgsky’s initial, almost haunting piano solo; Ravel’s lush full symphony orchestration; and even Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s mesmerizing progressive-rock, synthesizer-driven version.

Stefan Jackiw (supplied; Sophie Zhai)

But the highlights of Lehninger’s final concert of the 2016-17 season, for me, may have been discovery of the guest soloist Stefan Jackiw on violin, who was brilliant both as musical and showman, as well as the conductor leading the symphony string section in an offering of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings.

This being my first time seeing Lehninger leading the symphony, he more than lived up to his billing as a fiery young lion with baton in hand — a reputation he gained with the Boston Symphony, among others, and now brings to West Michigan as musical director.

Jackiw, too, demanded being center of attention on Erich Korngold’s Concerto for Violin in D Major, not only due to his shining guest soloist work but for his being an almost emotional force of nature. He is young, modern in style and artistic expression, and in the words of modern music, he and his violin shreds. His solo encore of the Largo from Bach’s Unaccompanied Violin Sonata in C was just musical icing on the evening’s cake.

Despite the age of the compositions presented at this concert, youth was served.

May I have more, please?

Lehninger prefaced the performance of Barber’s adagio by saying, from the stage, that it may be “the most melancholy and sad piece ever written” but adding that it was also “such a special piece.” And special it was. Given the dominating of much anticipated big, bold sections of Korngold’s concerto and “Pictures”, the haunting and, indeed, very sad Barber piece was a welcome introduction to a great evening.

Of course, I am also a fan of Barber’s works in general and, again, admit a bias.

Also, the Brazilian-born Lehninger hinted at the musical world of is home country he will bring to Grand Rapids next season when he will lead the orchestra in several pieces by Brazil’s best-known composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos, including Momoprecóce featuring Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire.

Can’t wait.

Eclectic season planned for GR Symphony in 2017-18

Citizen Journalism, Entertainment, , , , ,

 

By Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk

 

The Grand Rapids Symphony has unveiled its 2017-18 season with classical blockbusters, classic rock, Broadway’s biggest hits, family friendly entertainment and cinematic special events including second and third films in the Harry Potter Film Concert Series with live music.

 

In 2017-18 the symphony will perform all-time classical favorites including Ravel’s Bolero, Holst’sThe Planets, Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony No. 41, and an all-Tchaikovsky program on the Richard and Helen DeVos Classical series.

 

In addition to pianist extraordinaire, Nelson Freire, world-famous soloists including violinist Sarah Chang and pianist Gabriela Montego — all three personal friends and colleagues of the Grand Rapids Symphony’s new Music Director Marcelo Lehninger — will perform on the stage.

 

The 2017-18 season*

Grand Rapids Symphony’s 88th season includes such monumental works as Richard Strauss’ epic tone poem, Ein Heldenleben or A Hero’s Life in DeVos Hall.

 

The Brazilian-born Lehninger will lead the orchestra in several pieces by Brazil’s best-known composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos, including Momoprecóce featuring Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire. Several years ago, Lehninger led a performance of it with the Freire and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood.

 

Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus will join the orchestra for Verdi’s Requiem in the fall and for Beethoven’s “Choral” Symphony No. 9 to end the 2017-18 season.

 

“It’s one of the pieces I enjoy conducting the most,” Lehninger said about the Verdi Requiem.

 

*Click here for a pdf of the lineup.

 

St. Cecilia Music Center

At St. Cecilia Music Center, the Grand Rapids Symphony’s Crowe Horwath Great Eras and Porter Hills Coffee Classics series will expand from three concerts to four.

 

Sarah Chang, who was in Grand Rapids as St. Cecilia Music Center’s 2011 Great Artist, will open the Grand Rapids Symphony’s 2017-18 season with West Side Story Suite for Violin and Orchestra, arranged for her by David Newman from Leonard Bernstein’s musical score. The performance coincides with the 100th anniversary of Bernstein’s birth in 1917.

 

“Sarah’s a wonderful violinist, a wonderful artist, and a personal friend of mine,” Lehninger said. “She’s the only one who plays the piece, so it was a perfect fit.”

 

Venezuelan pianist Gabriella Montero will be soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, part of the all-Tchaikovsky program Lehninger will lead.

 

“Gabriella has a sound, a big, round sound that’ll be perfect for it,” Lehninger said. “She’s a great, great pianist with a great personality, a wonderful heart, and a fabulous musician.”

 

The Grand Rapids Pops

Join the Grand Rapids Pops at the movies for a full-length screening of An American in Paris starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron, the 1951 film powered by live musical accompaniment. Back by popular demand, the Fox Motors Pops Series celebrates the music of one of the greatest film composers in history with ‘Star Wars’ and More: The Music of John Williams.

 

The six-concert season, which opens with a salute to the music of Fleetwood Mac by the rock group Landslide, includes an evening of Broadway blockbusters with songs from Broadway’s biggest shows of all time including Wicked, Phantom of the Opera, The Sound Of Music, Chicago, A Chorus Line, and Cats.

 

Principal Pops Conductor Bob Bernhardt will be on the podium for the Wolverine Worldwide Holiday Pops, one of three shows he’ll lead on the series. Associate Conductor John Varineau will conduct the other three concerts including The Second City Guide to the Symphony, an evening of sketch comedy and beautiful music featuring The Second City comedy troupe.

 

A highlight of the 2017-18 season will be special-event screenings of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the second and third films in the Harry Potter franchise of eight movies, based on the books by J.K. Rowling.

 

Meanwhile, the Grand Rapids Symphony will unveil its 2017 D&W Fresh Market Picnic Pops series in mid-March. Plenty of great music is coming this summer to Cannonsburg Ski Area.

 

Back to Carnegie Hall in 2018

Nearly 12 years ago, the Grand Rapids Symphony capped off its 75th anniversary season with a trip to the Big Apple and a concert in New York City’s Carnegie Hall.

 

New York Times critic Bernard Holland, noting the enthusiastic reception for the orchestra in the 2,800-seat hall, began his review with, “The Grand Rapids Symphony came to Carnegie Hall on Saturday night and brought a good part of the city with it.”

 

The Grand Rapids Symphony, under Lehninger, will return to Carnegie Hall near the end of its 88th season in April 2018. The Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus, for the first time, will travel along with the orchestra for the performance in the world-famous concert hall.

 

The Brazilian-born conductor will be joined by the eminent Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire for a performance on April 20, one week after appearing in DeVos Performance Hall with a concert featuring Freire as soloist in Manuel de Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain and Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Momoprecóce.

 

Tickets

Season tickets are on sale now with select concerts also on sale to subscribers. Subscriptions are available at a discount of up to 50 percent off select series and seats for new package orders. Single tickets will be available beginning July 31.

 

Tickets are available at the GRS ticket office, weekdays 9 am-5 pm, at 300 Ottawa Ave. NW, Suite 100, (located across from the Calder Plaza), or by calling 616.454.9451 x 4. (Phone orders will be charged a $2 per ticket service fee, with a $12 maximum.)

GR Symphony, conductor Lehninger to take tour of historic Mussgorsky’s ‘Pictures’

3-bottom, Entertainment, Local Entertainment, Upcoming Events, , ,

Grand Rapids Symphony, conducted by Marcelo Lehninger, will present “Pictures at an Exhibition” next week. (Supplied/Stu Rosner)

 

By K.D. Norris

ken@wktv.org

 

Marcelo Lehninger, in his first full year as Grand Rapids Symphony’s Musical Director, has a long history with Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” — ranging from hearing it in its original piano solo form as a youth, to it being on his debut program at the famous Tanglewood Festival, to his now conducting it on both sides of the Atlantic in the span of a month.

 

But as he prepares to bring Maurice Ravel’s orchestrated version of the work to Grand Rapids’ DeVos Performance Hall on Friday and Saturday, March 3-4, he admits to having only a cursory knowledge of Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s progressive-rock, synthesizer-driven version.

 

And who is to blame him? He was raised in Brazil, surrounded by classical and Latin music — his father is German violinist Erich Lehninger and mother Brazilian pianist Sonia Goulart — and he was born in 1979, eight years after EL&P’s vinyl version debuted.

 

“I first heard the piece on its original piano solo version, and I felt in love with it,” Lehninger said in a email interview this week. “I’ve conducted many times — in fact I just conducted it in Europe (Slovenia) where I am right now. It was also on my debut program in Tanglewood with the Boston Symphony.”

 

The cover of Emerson, Lake and Palmers vinyl recording to “Pictures at an Exhibition”.

And, despite his only passing familiarity with the rock variation, he is all for even old rockers giving Ravel’s version a listen.

 

“I heard about the ELP version, but never got familiar with it,” he said. “In any case, we will rock with ‘Pictures’ next week in Grand Rapids!”

 

Ravel’s version, with its virtuoso violin work required, is the most “colorful” of all the versions, Lehninger believes, despite the fact that he studied both violin and piano early in his career.

 

“I definitely have an affinity for both violin and piano, not only because I studied these instruments, but because I grew up listening to them,” he said. “However, one instrument was never enough for me. I loved playing the violin and piano, but I needed more colors, more sounds; therefore I exchanged the 88 keys of the piano for 88 musicians in the orchestra.

 

“I believe that many composers that orchestrated the piece felt exactly how I felt playing just one instrument. This is a piece with so many sounds and colors possibilities, somehow the piano alone doesn’t achieve that. Therefore many composers orchestrated the piece. Although Ravel’s orchestration is criticized for not ‘sounding Russian enough’, it is my favorite orchestration of the piece. Ravel was a master of orchestration and with ‘Pictures’ he explores all the sound palette of the orchestra. I have to confess that I like Ravel’s version much better than the original piano solo version.”

 

In addition to “Pictures at an Exhibition”, also on the symphony’s upcoming program are Erich Korngold’s Violin Concerto in D Major with guest soloist Stefan Jackiw, as well as Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings and “John Corigliano’s Promenade Overture from 1981.

 

Violinist Stefan Jackiw. (Supplied)

Jackiw’s career has included performing at the grand opening of Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall alongside pianist Emanuel Ax, soprano Renée Fleming and conductor James Levine. He may be best known to younger audiences for his performance of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with the YouTube Symphony Orchestra at Australia’s Sydney Opera house, seen live on YouTube by more than 30 million people worldwide.

 

For more information on Grand Rapids Symphony concerts visit GRSymphony.org

 

Lehninger’s Symphony debut brings romance to St. Cecilia

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Marcelo Lehninger, Grand Rapids Symphony’s new music director, will conduct his first concert at St. Cecilia Music Center’s Royce Auditorium this week. (Supplied)

By K.D. Norris

ken@wktv.org

 

Marcelo Lehninger, Grand Rapids Symphony’s new music director, will conduct in the grand DeVos Performance Hall many times during his tenure, but this week he will conduct his first concert  in the exquisite intimacy of the St. Cecilia Music Center’s Royce Auditorium.

 

Somehow, that is only fitting and proper — and not just because the venue should also be perfect to experience the artistry of guest pianist Daniel Hsu.

 

Daniel Hsu will be the featured performer at the Grand Rapids Symphony concert. (Supplied)

On Friday, Jan. 6, Lehninger leads the orchestra in a concert of Romantic Era works by Brahms and Schumann with Hsu, a 2016 Gilmore Young Artist of Kalamazoo’s Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival.

 

The concert, scheduled for 8 p.m., is part of the symphony’s Crowe Horwath Great Eras concert. Tickets are available.

 

The program title is The Romantic Concert: Schumann & Brahms, and includes Schumann’s “Piano Concerto in A minor” — the composer’s only piano concerto. And both the work and the program’s theme are perfect for a concert focused on “romance.”

 

 

Composers Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms are considered the epitome of romantic composers and both had close relationships with Robert’s wife, Clara Schumann — musical and romantic in the case of Robert, and musical and friendship with Johannes. Both composers wrote music for Clara, a pianist.

 

Fittingly, Clara gave Schumann’s piano concerto its premiere performance in 1846 on New Year’s Day.

 

The Friday concert will also features Brahms’ “Tragic Overture” and his “Variations on a Theme of Haydn”.

 

Portions of evening program also will be performed at 10 a.m. Friday for the Porter Hills Coffee Classic series, with doors opening at 9 a.m. for complimentary coffee and pastry prior to a one-hour concert played without intermission.

 

The evening program will be rebroadcast on April 9 on Blue lake Public Radio, 88.9 FM or 90.3 FM.

 

Upcoming Lehninger symphony concerts

 

Lehninger’s will return to DeVos later this season as he will return in February and March for concerts with the Grand Rapids Symphony, highlighted by performances of works by Mozart and Mahler on Feb. 3-4, featuring pianist Andrew von Oeyen, and maybe the symphony season highlight on March 3-4 with a performance of Mussorgsky’s stunning and timeless “Pictures at an Exhibition” and Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” with guest violinist Stefan Jackiw.

 

It will be a treat for those who have never heard Mussorgsky’s work, a piano-solo piece in its original but orchestrated by Maurice Ravel in its most-often heard form. (OK, maybe Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s alt-rock version has been heard a lot too.) For those whom the work is new, it is a musical must.

 

For more information on Grand Rapids Symphony concerts visit GRSymphony.org