The Charlottesville and University Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kate Tamarkin, presents its final 2007-08 season concert, "Fantasy and Festival,” with works by Osvaldo Golijov, Ernest Bloch, and Hector Berlioz. The concert will be on Saturday, April 12 at 8:00pm, with a second performance on Sunday, April 13 at 3:30pm. The concert is part of the UVA International Conference on Israeli music and features prominent Jewish composers and renowned Israeli cellist Uri Vardi.
Argentinian-born Osvaldo Golijov caused a sensation in the music world in 2001 with the premičre of his Passion According to St. Mark. That score incorporated elements of Latin music ranging from Afro-Cuban rumba to Argentinian tango and the audience reaction was electrifying and has remained equally enthusiastic in subsequent performances of that and other works. As a result, Golijov has catapulted into the cultural spotlight and is now one of the busiest living composers. Golijov’s Night of the Flying Horses is drawn from his soundtrack to Sally Potter’s 2001 film, The Man who Cried, starring Christina Ricci, Cate Blanchett, Johnny Depp, and John Turturro. The film, set primarily in Nazi-occupied Paris, deals with the fate of Jews and Gypsies in that perilous time.
Prominent conductor, educator, and composer Ernest Bloch wrote Schelomo, Hebraic Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra as a meditation from the viewpoint of the aging Solomon. The solo cello represents his voice: brooding, pessimistic, and profoundly mournful. The orchestra is both his world and his people, and the political and emotional environment within which he has functioned for a lifetime of triumph and tragedy.
Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique is an intensely personal expression. Written on the eve of the 1830 July Revolution, the Symphonie Fantastique is the quintessential expression of its age. Frankly autobiographical, it bears the subtitle "Episode in the Life of an Artist." The basic premise is that a sensitive young artist, rejected by the woman he loves, has taken a potentially fatal dose of opium in a suicide attempt. Rather than dispatching him to his destiny, the opium catalyzes a series of hallucinatory dreams reflecting the artist's unstable state. These visions culminate in the nightmare-induced belief that he has murdered his beloved and is being led to the scaffold for execution. Such lurid experiences process themselves in his drugged mind as music, which we hear.
Free pre-concert lectures will be held in Minor Hall starting 45 minutes before each concert. They will be led by McIntire Department of Music Associate Professor Richard Will. In addition, Ms. Tamarkin will continue her popular “Noon Notes” lecture series. “Noon Notes” is held each Friday before concert weekends, at noon, at the Northside branch of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library.
- Who: Charlottesville and University Symphony Orchestra
- Kate Tamarkin, Music Director
- Uri Vardi, Cellist
- What: Fantasy & Festival
- Fifth Concert in the 2007-2008 Series
- Program:
Osvaldo Golijov
Ernest Bloch, Schelomo
Hector Berlioz
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Night of the Flying Horses
Hebraic Rhapsody for Cello & Orchestra
Uri Vardi, cello
Symphonie Fantastique
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- When:
- Saturday, April 12 at 8:00pm
- Sunday, April 13 at 3:30pm
- Where: Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia
Tickets: Single tickets range from $11 to $28 and can be purchased at the Cabell Hall Box Office at (434) 924-3984, 12pm to 5pm, Monday through Friday. For more information, visit www.cvillesymphony.org.
