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Tuesday, October 6, 2015

KZNPO’S SPRING SEASON CLIMAXES



(Maestro Justus Frantz)

The final two concerts of the KZN Philharmonic’s 2015 World Symphony Series Spring Season are set to run on October 8 and 22 in the Durban City Hall.

The KZN Philharmonic Orchestra’s penultimate concert in its 2015 Spring Season this Thursday (October 8) sees the German conductor Justus Frantz returning to the Durban City Hall podium. The evening’s programme opens with a performance of Mozart’s engaging three-movement Symphony No 32 in G Major K318, written in 1779 after the composer’s visit to Paris that year.

Tchaikovsky’s ever-popular Piano Concerto No 1 in B flat minor - one of the great barn-storming war-horses of the late 19th century - is the evening’s musical centrepiece. It will be performed by the prize-winning Russian virtuoso, Vitaly Pisarenko, winner of the Franz Liszt Competition in Utrecht, who makes a welcome return to the KZN Philharmonic’s guest roster during of his current South African concert tour.

After interval, Maestro Frantz, a one-time protégé of both Leonard Bernstein and Herbert von Karajan, leads his orchestral forces through a performance of another well-loved concert staple, Beethoven’s mighty Symphony in No 3 in E-flat Major Eroica.

The KZN Philarmonic’s Spring season climaxes on 22 October (there is no concert next Thursday) when the concert goers can look forward to a performance of Richard Strauss’s lushly scored orchestral tone poem, Death and Transfiguration, followed by Carl Orff’s grand-scale secular cantata, Carmina Burana. Set to reprise their appearances in the latter work as performed last year, are soprano Beverley Chiat, tenor Nicholas Nicholaidis and baritone Njabulo Madlala. The widely acclaimed young Russian conductor Daniel Raiskin will be on the podium.

The concerts are held in the City Hall starting at 19h30 and booking is through Computicket on 0861 915 8000 or online at www.computicket.com

The KZN Philharmonic Orchestra in association with Friends of Music hold pre-concert lectures in the City Hall at 18h15 prior to the evening’s programme. Teddy Pillay will conduct the lecture on October 8 with Michael Green conducting the lecture on October 22.