KZNPO opens four-concert winter season

The KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra (KZNPO) proudly opens its four-concert 2019 winter season this week, which runs in the Durban City Hall every Thursday from 30 May to 20 June, each concert starting at 7.30pm.

Conductor Lykele Temmingh launches the season on 30 May with a performance of Brahms’s thrilling D minor Piano Concerto, played by the award-winning, young Venezuelan virtuoso, Edith Peña who makes KZN Philharmonic debut. Temmingh brings the evening to a rousing close with Dvorák’s Symphony No 7.

The featured piece for the first concert is Brahms’s D minor Piano Concerto. Completed in 1858, it began its life as a sonata for two pianos – eventually assuming its famed tempestuous identity in which soloist and orchestral forces are pitted against each other. It has become one of the best loved and most frequently performed piano concertos in the world.

Yasuo Shinozaki, the acclaimed Japanese maestro, returns for the second and third concert programmes of the season. Repertoire to be enjoyed on 6 June includes: Weber’s Der Freischütz Overture: Elgar’s Cello Concerto, performed by the noted new-generation soloist, Alexander Ramm; with Sibelius’s stirring Symphony No 1 rounding off the programme.

Maestro Shinozaki’s programme on 13 June opens grandly with Mozart’s Idomeneo Overture, followed by the Austrian composer’s fleet-footed A Major Piano Concerto K 488, played by Sodi Braide. Tchaikovsky’s richly rewarding Symphony No. 1 in G minor, ‘Winter Daydreams’, rounds off the evening.

The Winter Season’s closing concert, presented on 20 June, sees notable debuts from two rising stars – the American conductor Robert Moody, and the young Munich-based Korean violinist, Ye-Eun Choi. The evening opens with Vivaldi’s hugely popular ‘Four Seasons’. After interval Felix Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture and Reformation Symphony make for a rousing climax to the season.

The season upholds the stellar tradition of international calibre music-making, carried out through the Orchestra’s World Symphony Series (WSS), which launched in Durban 24 years ago. “We have a fine array of talent gracing our guest roster this season, and our richly curated programmes include a judicious mix of concert staples, presented alongside some alluring if less familiar masterworks,” says KZN Philharmonic’s Artistic Director and Chief Executive, Bongani Tembe.

Season tickets for the KZN Philharmonic’s World Symphony Series 2019 winter season are available through Computicket. Call 0861 915 8000 or book online at www.computicket.com. For more information, visit https://kznphil.org.za/, email bookings@kznphil.org.za or call 031-369-9438 (office hours).

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