CPO strikes up for autumn
AFTER a rousing International Summer Music Festival and West Side Story performances, the musicians of the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) are looking to the autumn season, which runs from May31 to June21.
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The four-concert season will be conducted by Conrad van Alphen and Victor Yampolsky, who will direct two concerts each.
In the first concert, on May31, Italian pianist Antonio PompaBaldi makes a welcome return performing the Respighi Piano Concerto in a debut performance for this concert.
Other works on the programme are Rachmaninoff ’s Isle of the Dead and Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky and orchestrated by Ravel.
The concert will begin with a curtain-raiser by the Cape Town Philharmonic Youth Wind Ensemble, highlighting its invitation to visit Germany next year.
The young musicians, conducted by Faan Malan, will perform a rousing work .
Van Alphen’s second concert on June 7 showcases the amazing Russian violinist, Nikita BorisoGlebsky, who had the audience on its feet in his last appearance with the CPO. He will perform Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.
The concert begins with the overture to Beethoven’s opera Fidelio, and concludes with the 1st Symphony in E minor by Sibelius.
Victor Yampolsky, who will also present master classes to the 16 candidates accepted for the 4th Len van Zyl Conductors’ Competition, will conduct the concerts on June 14 and 21.
American pianist Spencer Myer will also make a return with the Grieg Piano Concerto, while Yampolsky and the CPO will perform Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture and the 7th Symphony by Prokofiev.
The series ends on June21 with an appearance by widely acclaimed Russian cellist Alexander Buzlov.
He will play the Walton Cello Concerto, also a premiere for the CPO, while Yampolsky and the CPO will present the overture to Wagner’s opera, Rienzi, and Vaughan Williams’s Symphony No 5.
For more details, e-mail luvuyo@cpo.org.za or call 0214109809 or go to www.cpo.org.za