Gemma New Conducts Rachmaninoff's Symphonic DancesFeaturing Garrick Ohlsson and Barber's Piano Concerto
March 6-8 | 2020
Gemma New CONDUCTS
Garrick Ohlsson PIANO
JOHN ADAMS
The Chairman Dances
BARBER
Piano Concerto
RACHMANINOFF
Symphonic Dances
There’s much to savor in Rachmaninoff’s stirring Symphonic Dances: an alto saxophone and pulsating percussion in the first; a dark, eerie waltz in the second; and Russian Orthodox chants, tubular bells and the composer’s go-to Dies irae in the last. Garrick Ohlsson’s virtuosity is on full display in Barber’s breathtaking Piano Concerto, praised at its premiere as “the birth of an American classic…a big, splashy, old-fashioned concerto.”
“[Ohlsson has] a sound so lush it almost glistens”
Seattle Times