RI PHILHARMONIC WELCOMES ROBERT LEVIN FOR MOZART APRIL 12

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1 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 24, 2014 CONTACT: Kyle Phipps, Marketing Manager / kphipps@riphil.org RI PHILHARMONIC WELCOMES ROBERT LEVIN FOR MOZART APRIL 12 APRIL 11 AMICA RUSH HOUR PERFORMANCE INCLUDES SIDE-BY-SIDE WITH RIPYO March 24, 2014 East Providence, RI Renowned Mozart interpreter ROBERT LEVIN returns to join Music Director LARRY RACHLEFF and the RHODE ISLAND PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA for Mozart s Piano Concerto, No.20 in D minor on Saturday April 12. The orchestra will also perform Shostakovich s Fifth Symphony No.5 in D minor, and the rarely-heard twentieth-century American gem, Charles Ives The Unanswered Question. The concert takes place Saturday April 12 at 8:00pm at The Vets in Providence. The concert is sponsored by Taco/The White Family Foundation, and Mr. Levin s appearance is sponsored by Dr. and Mrs. Ronald DeLellis. WPRO News Talk 630 is the media sponsor. Tickets (starting at $15) are available at riphil.org/tickets, by phone at , and in person at the RIPO box office, 667 Waterman Ave., East Providence. The AMICA RUSH HOUR performance featuring selections from Saturday s program and a side-by-side performance with members of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Youth Orchestra is Friday April 11 at 6:30pm. LARRY RACHLEFF, music director, said: I love this program so much, because I get to collaborate with one of my best friends! Bob Levin is perhaps the greatest classical pianist of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven in the world today. Bob has been with us before, but not for a long time, and he ll join us for Mozart s 20 th piano concerto. Robert will improvise it like a jazz pianist, making up his cadenzas and adding notes all over it s really a Mozart/Levin concerto. Interestingly, he added, the last time the Philharmonic performed this concerto was a long time ago, on November 23, 1963, the day after President Kennedy was assassinated. Rachleff continued: The concert opens with the iconic New England composer Charles Ives The Unanswered Question, a work for strings, four flutes and an off-stage trumpet, who intones the very question for which the strings provide the answer, perhaps. It s a touching and haunting piece, written at the beginning of the twentieth century: it sounds as if it could have been written two weeks ago. Shostakovich s Fifth Symphony comprises the second half of the concert. Two seasons ago, we gave you his Leningrad Seventh symphony, Rachleff concluded. His Fifth is his most popular, written in a kind of defiance to the Stalinists, created in such a way that they believed he was saluting them when in fact, he was not. It s a work of great drama and power and strength, typical of Shostakovich s bold mature language. We performed the work here many years ago, and look forward to exploring it again in this program. Pianist ROBERT LEVIN is one of America s leading keyboard players in the early instruments movement, but he has a large repertory in all major periods and genres of piano music. He is equally at home at the harpsichord, the fortepiano and the standard pianoforte as a recitalist, concerto performer and accompanist. Mr. Levin is best known as a Mozart pianist and scholar and has written cadenzas to many of the master s recordings, published embellishments of Mozart solo parts and several reconstructions or completions of Mozart works. He studied with the legendary teacher Nadia Boulanger at the American Conservatory in France while he was still a teenager. Mr. Levin attended Harvard University and upon graduation joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute as head of the

2 theory department. He became the Resident Director of the American Conservatory ( ). In 1993 he became a professor of Humanities at Harvard University. The Philharmonic s season features eight Classical concerts on Saturday nights at 8pm at The Vets. Four are preceded by Amica Rush Hour concerts on Friday at 6:30pm, and four have Friday Open Rehearsals at 5:30pm. This season s remaining Amica Rush Hour Series concert is on Friday April 11. The shorter, informal, accessible Rush Hour concerts feature full performances of select repertoire from the Saturday Classical concerts whenever possible. The remaining Open Rehearsal, on Friday May 9, offers insight into the collaboration between the conductor, guest artists and orchestra musicians as they prepare for the upcoming classical concert. Subscriptions are on sale now. Please call the Philharmonic box office at , or visit AT A GLANCE: Robert Levin, piano Saturday April 12 at 8:00pm IVES The Unanswered Question, S.50 MOZART Piano Concerto No.20, D minor, K.466 SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No.5, D minor, op.47 AMICA RUSH HOUR performance: Friday April 11 at 6:30pm MOZART Piano Concerto No.20, D minor, K.466 (selected movements) SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No.5, D minor, op.47, (selected movements) Plus side-by-side performance with RI Philharmonic Youth Orchestra TICKETS: starting at $15, with discounts for students and groups in select sections online: 24/7 by phone: Philharmonic box office: ; Monday-Friday 9 4:30 in person: Philharmonic box office, Carter Center, 667 Waterman Street, East Providence, Monday-Friday 9 4:30 OR The Vets box office, Avenue of the Arts, Providence, concert Friday 2 showtime; concert Saturday 3:30 showtime Robert Levin, piano This is a low-res image! Click here for a hi-res version of this image.

3 ABOUT THE PROGRAM: stories behind the music Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question Jekyll & Hyde? Ives biographer John Kirkpatrick points out, he was "irascible or very quiet, a normal athlete or pathologically shy, an Emersonian visionary but a hymn-singing enthusiast By day, he was a successful insurance executive; by night and on weekends, he was an obscure, misunderstood composer. He was both an iconoclastic experimenter and a quoter of the most traditional hymns and patriotic American songs. Juxtaposing key-related and non-key-related music was one of Ives's favorite paradoxical procedures. Two groups of instruments often perform with no apparent awareness of one another. So what s the question, and what s the answer, and what does it mean? Ives wrote: The strings play pianississimo throughout with no change in tempo. They are to represent The Silences of the Druids Who Know, See and Hear Nothing. The trumpet intones The Perennial Question of Existence, and states it in the same tone of voice each time. But the hunt for The Invisible Answer undertaken by the flutes and other human beings becomes gradually more active, faster and louder.... The Fighting Answers, as the time goes on, and after a secret conference, seem to realize a futility and begin to mock The Question the strife is over for the moment. After they disappear, The Question is asked for the last time, and The Silences are heard beyond in Undisturbed Solitude." The Unanswered Question is Ives' most famous work. Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466 Can t talk now, Pop! : On February 10, 1785, Mozart s father arrived for a visit. Wolfgang was busy finishing his D Minor Concerto, with a deadline of playing the premiere in concert that very night! Sad times ahead: The 20 th Concerto (he would write only 21) was Mozart's first piano concerto in a minor key, D minor the key of doom in Don Giovanni, the key of sorrow in the Requiem. We can hear themes from Don Giovanni, composed just two years later. It is a strikingly Romantic work, full of drama and tragedy sharply contrasted with sublimity and innocence. Possibly, that variety of moods is what attracted 19th-century performers to it. Beethoven provided cadenzas for the outer movements. Shostakovich, Symphony No. 5, Op. 47 Shostakovich composed the Fifth Symphony in The previous year the Soviet press attacked his music, stating that his art conflicted with the ideals of the Soviet Composers' Union "toward the victorious progressive principles of reality, toward all that is heroic, bright, and beautiful." A year later, shortly before the premiere of his Fifth Symphony, the composer wrote a preface to justify the idea of tragedy in the context of Soviet art: I think Soviet tragedy as a genre has every right to exist We know of many masterpieces in musical literature where the stern, inspirational language of Verdi's or Mozart's Requiem can fill the human soul not with weakness and despair, but courage and the will to fight. The Fifth Symphony's intent is universal impact and significance. Its immediate subject is, however, the composer himself. The work is full of personal passages: wry, sardonic humor; great tragedy, ending in peace and tranquility. The finale is a joyous triumph, although battle scars are still perceptible. In the final minutes of the symphony, pounding rhythms support a glorious brass hymn. Biographers Dmitri and Ludmilla Sollertinsky wrote: Hearing the symphony, we know it is about us and our complicated, ambiguous age, which can still overcome all and move resolutely onward to light and happiness.

4 RHODE ISLAND PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA: CLASSICAL SEASON TO COME Season Finale: Beethoven with Alon Goldstein Alon Goldstein, piano The Providence Singers, Christine Noel, artistic director STRAUSS Don Juan, TrV 156, op.20 BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No.1, C major, op.15 RAVEL Daphnis et Chloé: Suites 1 & 2 Saturday May 10 at 8:00pm Open Rehearsal: Friday May 9 at 5:30pm All programs and artists are subject to change without notice. SPECIAL GALA EVENT Yo-Yo Ma and the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra: Prelude to Season 70 A Grand Gala to Celebrate the Orchestra s 70 th Season Yo-Yo Ma, cello BERLIOZ STRAVINSKY ELGAR Béatrice et Bénédict: Overture The Firebird: Suite Cello Concerto, op.85 Sunday June 1 at 7:00pm One Performance Only All programs and artists are subject to change without notice.

5 ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION The Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra & Music School is the largest fully integrated orchestra and music school in the United States. Our mission is to enrich and transform Rhode Island and our region through great music performance and education is the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra s 69th Season, Music Director Larry Rachleff s 18th with the Orchestra. The season includes an eight-concert Classical Series with a roster of world-renowned guest artists that includes pianists Alon Goldstein, Cecile Licad, Jean-Philippe Collard and Robert Levin, violinists Jennifer Frautschi and Philippe Quint, cellist Colin Carr, and guest conductor Michael Christie. Our Amica Rush Hour Series offers an early start time 6:30pm on four Fridays (October 18, November 15, March 21, April 11). These shorter, informal, accessible classical concerts feature full performances of select repertoire from the Saturday Classical concerts. Our four Open Rehearsals, on Fridays at 5:30pm (September 20, January 17, February 21, May 9), offer audience members insight into the collaboration between the conductor, guest artists and orchestra musicians as they prepare for the upcoming classical concert. Special events include the perennial holiday favorite Handel s Messiah with The Providence Singers on Saturday, December 7 at 7:00pm. Resident Conductor Francisco Noya conducts Handel s Messiah, our Education Concerts and our Summer Pops Concerts. Now in its 26th year, the Rhode Island Philharmonic Music School serves approximately 1,500 children, youth and adults every week with lessons, classes, ensembles and community partnership programs, and an additional 13,000 students annually through partnerships, residencies, education concerts and in-school performances. Ensembles include five youth orchestras, two wind ensembles, eleven jazz ensembles and many chamber music ensembles and the RI Philharmonic Community Orchestra for adults. Information is available at TICKETS AND DISCOUNTS Tickets may be purchased 24/7 on the Philharmonic website: Tickets may also be purchased at the Philharmonic box office at 667 Waterman Avenue, East Providence, by phone ( ) or in-person Monday Friday 9am 4:30pm. On Open Rehearsal and Amica Rush Hour Fridays, ticket sales are also available at The Vets box office, from 2:00pm and 2:30pm respectively until showtime. On Saturday concert days, tickets are available onsite at The Vets box office from 3:30pm until showtime, or by calling Ticket prices start at $15 for adults, with discounts in selected areas of the hall for full time students and groups. Rush Hour concert tickets range from $15 to $50. Additional facilities and handling fees apply. Tickets for Open Dress Rehearsals are $15, inclusive of fees. There is free parking for all Philharmonic concerts at designated lots along Smith Street. For Saturday evening concerts, the Philharmonic provides a free shuttle bus to and from the parking lots before and after the concerts. Also for Saturday evening Classical concerts, valet parking is available at the front door of The Vets, for a cash fee of $20. ###