Enjoy an early autumn afternoon of powerful music as superstar violinist Ida Kavafian performs Michael Daugherty’s Fire & Blood violin concerto. Hector Berlioz’s flamboyant Beatrice and Benedict overture opens the concert that also includes the colorful and timeless audience favorite, Pictures at an Exhibition by Russian romantic Modeste Mussorgsky.
Ida Kavafian, violin
Guillermo Figueroa, conductor
Berlioz
Overture to Béatrice et Bénédict
Michael Daugherty
Fire & Blood concerto for violin and orchestra
Mussorgsky/Ravel
Pictures at an Exhibition
Of Note
Berlioz’s comic opera Beatrice and Benedict is loosely based upon Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Listen for how the composer captures The Bard’s humor, especially in the overture’s second half.
Michael Daugherty’s Fire & Blood violin concerto is inspired by street art from Detroit’s industrial heritage. Guest soloist Ida Kavafian premiered this concerto in 2003 with the Detroit Symphony and conductor Leonard Slatkin.
Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is a staple of the repertoire—the solo piano repertoire. Actually, there are at least 25 known orchestrations of this work: the most famous is by French composer Maurice Ravel, himself an accomplished pianist.
Ida Kavafian, violin
Internationally acclaimed as a violist as well as violinist, the versatile Ida Kavafian is an artist-member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and former violinist of the Beaux Arts Trio. For 34 years she has been artistic director of Music from Angel Fire in New Mexico, where some 200 Curtis Institute of Music (Philadelphia) students have participated in the Young Artist Program to date.