Orchestra’s season finale to feature music by French composers
The Redlands Symphony Orchestra will end its 2021-22 season with two performances Sunday of a recital featuring music by French composers.
Flutist Ransom Wilson, who is the orchestra’s conductor and music director, will join French pianist François Dumont in the program at the First Presbyterian Church of Redlands, 100 Cajon St. Performances are at 3 and 7 p.m.
Tickets start at $18 and are available at redlandssymphony. com or by calling 909-587-5565. Tickets will also be available at the door.
“Thanks to everyone’s new best friend coronavirus, it has been almost three years since François Dumont and I have seen each other,” Wilson said in a news release.
“Knowing that we were scheduled to play a recital this coming
June for the all-important Redlands audience, we decided that we needed to get used to playing together again. So I recently took a trip to France, where I stayed with François and his beautiful family while we rehearsed,” Wilson said.
“From the first notes, it was like meeting a childhood friend. No matter how much time had passed, we were in sync. Then we took the TGV train to play two recitals, one in a former royal palace in the gorgeous 17th-century village of Blois, and one at the Claude Debussy Conservatoire in Paris. Such an immense pleasure for both of us, and I predict that you have a real treat in store in June.”
The program includes Maurice Ravel’s Violin Sonata No. 1, transcribed for flute and piano, “D’un matin de printemps” (“Of a Spring Morning”) by Lili Boulanger, Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for Flute and Piano, Claude Debussy’s
“Estampes” for solo piano and “Syrinx” for solo flute and Jean Rivier’s “Oiseaux tendres” (“Sweet Birds”), among others.
Wilson, who has been music director of the Redlands Symphony since 2016, is also artistic director of New York’s Le Train Bleu ensemble and of the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company. He has also been music director of the Solisti New York Orchestra, the OK Mozart International Festival and the Idyllwild Arts Academy Orchestra and has appeared as guest conductor with many orchestras, including the San Francisco Chamber Symphony.
Wilson has appeared as a flute soloist with orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra and London Symphony and has released 27 albums as a flute soloist and 11 as a conductor, winning three Grammy nominations, according to the news release.
French pianist François Dumont’s international career was launched by his success in international piano competitions, including winning prizes in the Chopin Competition, the Queen Elisabeth Competition and the Clara Haskil Competition.
He has been nominated for the Victoires de la musique, a major French classical music event, and has
He has appeared as a soloist with orchestras including the Cleveland Orchestra, the Montecarlo Philharmonic, the Orchestre National d’Île de France, the Warsaw National Philharmonic and the Tokyo Symphony and he regularly tours Japan and China.
Among his recordings are the complete piano music of Maurice Ravel and two albums with Ransom Wilson, “In the Time of Ravel” and “In the Age of Debussy.”