Currie

Currie x 3
Saturday, October 4, 2008 at 8pm
Presented by Plaza Lexus

David Robertson, conductor
Colin Currie, percussion

MOZART The Abduction from the Seraglio Overture
HK GRUBER Rough Music (US Premiere)
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 7

Colin Currie nimbly crossed back and forth across the stage playing a battery of percussion in spring 2006, and audiences felt the sonic power reverberating long after. This season Currie plays a different percussion concerto for each concert. Mozart and Beethoven, classical purveyors of modern rhythms, complete the adventure.

John Patitucci

Saturday, November 15, 2008 at 8pm
Presented by MasterCard

David Robertson, conductor
Leila Josefowicz, violin
John Patitucci, electric bass and electric bass guitar

MARK-ANTHONY TURNAGE A Prayer Out of Stillness
STEVEN MACKEY Violin Concerto (US Premiere)
STRAVINSKY The Rite of Spring

The most outrageous work from the beginning of the 20th century, The Rite still beats with a rock & roll heart in the 21st, and so matches a quiet piece for electric bass and electric bass guitar, and a violin concerto by a dynamic composer with an electric guitar in mind.

Robertson

Saturday, December 13, 2008 at 8pm

David Robertson, conductor
Jessica Rivera, soprano
Kelley O’Connor, mezzo-soprano
Steven Rickards, Daniel Bubeck
Brian Cummings, countertenors
Jonathan Lemalu, bass-baritone
Saint Louis Symphony Chorus
Amy Kaiser, director
The St. Louis Children’s Choirs
Barbara Berner, director

JOHN ADAMS El Niño

“The piece is my way of trying to understand what is meant by a miracle,” John Adams says of his nativity oratorio. Handel’s Messiah is indeed a model, but the shout of “Hallelujah” is propelled by a convergence of forces, as if orchestra and chorus were caught up in a whirlwind of history and myth, faith and doubt, memory and dream. Prepare to be blown away.

Lee

Saturday, February 7, 2009 at 8pm
Presented by Thompson Coburn LLP

Xian Zhang, conductor
Daniel Lee, cello

CHEN YI Si Ji (Four Seasons)
ELGAR Cello Concerto
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5

Music of the seasons, from an Asian perspective. Then Elgar’s concerto, written near the close of World War I, makes music from the ashes of a world destroyed, hauntingly played by SLSO Principal Cello Daniel Lee. Out of Tchaikovsky’s struggles of the heart, he makes an eloquent appeal to Fate.

Sparks

Saturday, March 14, 2009 at 8pm

Nicholas McGegan, conductor
Mark Sparks, flute

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
NIELSEN Flute Concerto
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 6, “Pastoral”

Beethoven treasured the sounds of the woods, even when those sounds were more remembered than heard. His “Pastoral” Symphony contains a storm (of nature and of mind) that inspired many cinematic soundtracks to come. In Vaughan Williams and Nielsen you hear two composers who listened as deeply to nature, and were as inspired.

Hamelin

Saturday, May 2, 2009 at 8pm

Yan Pascal Tortelier, conductor
Marc-André Hamelin, piano

RAVEL Le Tombeau de Couperin
SAINT-SAËNS Piano Concerto No. 2
DEBUSSY/RAVEL Sarabande
FRANCK Symphony in D minor

An artist needs to announce “Here I am!” sometimes. Ravel, paying homage to another, at the same time brilliantly proclaims himself. Franck, late in his life, takes on the symphony, which he does exuberantly. Saint-Saëns wrote this mercurial concerto for himself, and for audiences to exclaim, “Wow!”