LAST ‘SWITCH’ FOR PPO’S 39TH CONCERT SEASON

THE Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, the country’s primary orchestra, will take its last Switch for its 39th concert season on April 19, 7:30 pm, at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater in Circuit Makati. For its finale concert, the resident orchestra of the Cultural Center of the Philippines will feature violinist Diomedes Saraza Jr. as its guest soloist. Saraza Jr. is an active concert violinist, chamber musician, and avid educator.

The former Manila Symphony Orchestra’s concertmaster, Saraza is a well-established musical artist who has taken part in many international solo performances with different orchestras such as the Mannes Orchestra, New York Symphonic Arts Ensemble, and the Sichuan Philharmonic Orchestra, to name a few. His extensive solo and chamber performances include prestigious venues that span from Philippines’ Cultural Center of the Philippines, New York’s Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Carnegie Hall, to Russia’s Tchaikovsky’s Concert Hall among others. For its final concert, PPO music director and principal conductor Maestro Grzegorz Nowak will take the baton, leading the national orchestra in a night of Fete Francaise. The concert program includes National Artist Lucresia Kasilag’s “Violin Concerto No. 1,” Camille Saint-saëns’ “Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 28,” and Franz Schubert’s “Symphony No. 5.”

Tickets to PPO Concert VIII: Fete Francaise are priced at P3,000 (orchestra center), P2,000 (orchestra side), P2,500 (loge center), P1,500 (loge side), and P800 (balcony 1).

The PPO concert season is made possible with partners SSI Group Inc., TBWA\ SMP, Ascott Bonifacio Global City, and Lyf Malate Manila.

More information can be found at www.culturalcenter.gov.ph.