University of South Carolina Symphony
Orchestra opens the season with “empress
of the keyboard,” Natasha Paremski
The September 15 concert includes music of
Tchaikovsky and Sibelius
The University of South Carolina’s premier orchestra ensemble, led by
acclaimed music director Donald Portnoy, receives accolades for its fine
performances. The first concert of the 2015-2016 season brings guest artist pianist
Natasha Paremski, called
“empress of the keyboard” by the Kalamazoo
Gazette. The San
Francisco Classical Voice wrote Paremski, “… has
a real feeling for lush romantic music, the ability to handle blazingly rapid
passagework, beautifully executed trills, and all made to look very easy.”
Paremski will play Tchaikovsky’s
Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor.
The concert takes place at the Koger Center for the
Arts on Tuesday, September 15 at 7:30 p.m.
The
Concerto nearly brought the composer and his friend Nikolay Rubinstein to blows.
The work was met by harsh criticism from his friend, whom he had asked for
advice. The suggested changes did not sit well with Tchaikovsky and were not
made. Tchaikovsky dedicated the work, not to Rubenstein as was first intended,
but to Hans von Bülow, the famous German pianist and conductor who already
liked Tchaikovsky’s music.
Ironically,
it was Rubinstein who eventually showed the Concerto off to its best advantage,
admitting he had been wrong about it several years later. The eccentricities of
the First Piano Concerto, some of which may have caused Rubinstein’s
disparagement, are now considered some of its greatest charms.
Also on the
September program is Finnish composer Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2 in D major,
his most popular symphony. The symphony, associated with the Finnish
landscape and a patriotic program, was a work the composer actually conceived
in Italy. The symphony was begun in winter 1901 in Rapallo,
Italy, finished in Finland in 1902 and first performed by the Helsinki
Philharmonic Society in March 1902. Finland was undergoing turmoil at the turn
of the 20th century and was experiencing a nationalistic fervor against the oppression
of its Russian occupiers. Although the composer claimed no patriotic intent was
inherent in the work, Helsinki audiences had understood the new symphony to be
an overt expression of the political conflict reigning over Finland.
Tickets
now on sale
Single concert tickets are $30 general public; Discounts: $25 senior citizens, USC faculty and staff; $8 students. Call 803-777-7500 or Koger Box
Office, corner of Greene and Park Streets (M-F
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) or online at kogercenterforthearts.com.
Save with a season subscription
Save with a season subscription (6 concerts) and enjoy the best seats in
the house: $150 general public; Discounts: $110 senior citizens, USC faculty and staff; $45 students.
See
the season’s details at sc.edu/music/orchestra-season
