(Conductor
Brandon William Phillips)
The KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra
(KZNPO) proudly announces details of its four-concert 2019 Summer Season. This
runs in the Durban City Hall every Thursday from February 14 to March 7 each
concert starting at 19h30. The season continues to uphold the tradition of the
acclaimed World Symphony Series (WSS), which launched in Durban 23 years ago.
“We are proud to launch our 2019 World
Symphony Series this Summer Season with a spectacular line-up of international
talent on our roster, who will join us in taking the experience of concert
going for our audience to a new level,” says KZNPO Chief Executive and Artistic
Director Bongani Tembe.
“We welcome our dedicated subscribers back
to the Durban City Hall, as we do those enthusiasts who prefer to cherry pick
their musical outings from the season’s line-up. Our finely curated programmes
include a judicious mix of well-loved pieces along with some enticing but less
familiar masterworks, which you are sure to enjoy discovering!”
(Alexander
Gilmann)
The acclaimed young Cape Town conductor
Brandon William Phillips launches the season on February 14, opening his
programme with Glinka’s dashing Overture to his opera, Russlan and Ludmilla. This will be followed by an exciting debut
from one of Europe’s frontline new generation stars, the acclaimed young
soloist Alexander Gilmann, who will give a rare account of Erich Korngold’s
dazzling 1947 Violin Concerto. Two contrasting works by Sir Edward Elgar take
up the second half of the evening, his rarely performed Froissart concert
overture, and his ever welcome Enigma
Variations.
Bernhard Gueller takes to the KZNPO podium
for the second concert of the season on February 21. This opens with two
Olympian works written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: the magnificent Overture to
his last opera, Die Zauberflöte, and
his Jupiter Symphony, completed in 1788. After intermission, the acclaimed
Indian-American pianist Pallavi Mahidhara, a long-standing favourite with
Durban audiences, takes on the challenges of Brahms’ powerfully evocative B
flat Major Piano Concerto.
After an absence of some years,
Russian-born Victor Yampolsky returns to the KZNPO podium on 28 February to
delight his audience with a stirring programme made up of Robert Schumann’s
much-loved Fourth Symphony, followed by a selection of operatic show-stoppers
in the second half. This opens with Richard Wagner’s resplendent Overture to
his three-act Romantic masterwork, Tannhäuser.
After this, Cape-Town-trained soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, winner of
the 2018 UNISA International Singing Competition, steps into the spotlight as
the evening’s soloist to launch her contribution to the evening’s programme
with another item from this famous opera, the ecstatic “Dich teure halle”, popularly known as ‘Elisabeth’s Greeting’.
Leavening the ‘big-gun’ content of the programme with some Italian melodrama,
the heart-rending Intermezzo from Mascagni’s hugely popular one-act Opera, Cavalleria Rusticana, paves the way for
another operatic tear-jerker – ‘Ebben! ne andro’ lontana’ from Alfredo
Catalani's brooding, verismo opera, La
Wally. What better way to round off the evening than with two items from
one of Giuseppe Verdi’s most thrilling masterpieces, the Overture and the
soprano solo, ‘Pace, pace mio Dio’ from La
Forza del Destino, an experience sure to send Durban’s audience home happy.
Daniel Boico, KZNPO’S dynamic
Israeli-American Associate Guest Conductor, is at the helm for the last
programme of the season on March 7, opening with Grieg’s ever popular Peer Gynt
Suite No 1, followed by a performance of the same composer’s celebrated Piano
Concerto in a minor, with Russian virtuoso Olga Kern in the spotlight. Dvořák’s
rarely heard Symphony No 1 in C minor, a youthful work bursting with youthful
vigour evocative of Beethoven and Mendelssohn promises to end the season on a
high.
Season tickets for the KZN Philharmonic’s
World Symphony Series 2019 Summer Season are available through Computicket.
Call 0861 915 8000 or book online at www.computicket.com.
For more information visit
http://kznphil.org.za/, email bookings@kznphil.org.za or call 031-369 9438
(office hours).
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