Musical fireworks in JPO's mid-year season

 Date 19  April 2011

What better way to enjoy the cooler autumn months than with a hearty broth of fine music, courtesy of the JPO’s second season of symphony concerts?
The Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra’s next concert season kicks off on 4 May 2011 and wraps up on 9 June 2011. The series of concerts will once again showcase the timeless beauty of classical music to Joburg and Pretoria audiences.

The concerts begin at Parktown’s Linder Auditorium on 4 and 5 May with what will undoubtedly be a treat for avid music lovers: Singaporean-born Indian conductor George Mathew, inspirational founder of Music for Life International and Ubuntu-Shruti, will make a guest appearance with the JPO. As a torch-bearer for transformative action through the arts, Mathew is passionate about using symphonic music to focus on global humanitarian issues and crises.
Under his baton, the JPO and Montenegrian violinist Roman Simovic, currently concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra, will perform Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, Op.61, D major. The programme also includes Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro, Op.47 and Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony, Op.25.
Mathew, Simovic and the JPO will repeat this concert at Unisa’s ZK Matthews Hall on Sunday, 8 May at 3pm.

The bar remains high for the remainder of the season, with Polish conductor Michal Dworzynski coming on board for the following two weeks. Described as a “firecracker” and “energiser” of a conductor, he will be leading the orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.3, Op.29, D major (Polish) and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, Op.35, on 11 and 12 May.
Dworzynski will remain in town the following week for the concerts on 18 and 19 May at the Linder Auditorium, with a repeat at Unisa on 22 May at 3pm. The featured soloist is Dmitry Kouzev, a talented and versatile cellist from Russia who returns to South Africa to perform Schumann’s Cello Concerto, Op.129, A minor with the JPO. The remainder of the programme includes another Schumann work, the Symphony No.2, Op.61, C major as well as Kodály’s Dances of Galanta.
The remaining three weeks of the season will be presided over by the JPO’s principal guest conductor, Bernhard Gueller.

On 25 and 26 May, two of the JPO’s very own horn heavyweights, Shannon Armer and Peter Griffiths, in concert with the orchestra, will treat audiences to a rendition of Haydn’s Double Horn Concerto and Saint-Saëns’ Morceau de concert, Horn and Orchestra, Op.94. The JPO will also perform Fauré’s Pelleas et Melisande, Op.80: Suite and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.1, Op.13, G minor (Winter Daydreams: Réverie d’hiver).

Currently completing her Masters degree in music at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, 23-year-old South African violinist Avigail Bushakevitz is unquestionably an exciting talent who has a bright future ahead of her on the international stage. She will be performing Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto, No.2, Op.63, G minor with the JPO on 1 and 2 June, as well as on 5 June in Pretoria. The orchestra will also play De Falla’s Three Cornered Hat, Suite 1 and Mozart’s Symphony No.39, K.543, E-flat minor.
This concert is preceded by a performance by the JPO Academy Orchestra – an incubator initiative that is grooming the next generation of musicians to enter the ranks of the JPO – conducted by Sonja Bass. They will perform Finlandia by Sibelius.

The JPO’s final symphony concerts in its 2011 second season will be on 8 and 9 June. Gueller wields the baton for the Bach Suite (Overture) No.1, BWV 1066, C major and a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No.5, C-sharp major as part of the JPO’s ongoing commemoration of the centenary of the Austrian composer’s death.

The Wednesday and Thursday night concerts at the Linder Auditorium start at 8pm, with the periodic Unisa Sunday-afternoon concerts starting at 3pm. Tickets are available at Computicket from 15 April or at the door. For more information, call 011 789 2733, e-mail info@jpo.co.za or visit http://www.jpo.co.za/.