KZN Philharmonic Orchestra Spring Symphony Season Concert 1

ABOUT

CONCERT 1

Thursday 6 October

CONDUCTOR: Daniel Boico

SOLOISTS: Nina Schumann - Piano;

Nombuso Dladla - Soprano;

Khumbuzile Dlamini - Mezzo soprano;

Thabiso Mademene - Tenor;

Bongani Kubekha - Baritone.

CHOIRS: Clermont Choir, featuring Zama High School Choir (Newcastle)

CHORAL CONDUCTORS: Brian Msizi Mnyandu (Clermont Choir); Njabulo Ndlovu (Zama High School Choir)

PROGRAMME: 

Kodály - Dances of Galanta

Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue

Handel - Judas Maccabeus (extracts)

Daniel Boico makes a popular return to open the KZN Philharmonic’s Spring Season True to form, the ever-imaginative Israeli American maestro has curated an eclectically exciting programme for the occasion. The Hungarian composer Zotan Kodály wrote his Dances of Galánta for the 80th anniversary of the Budapest Philharmonic Society. In the preface to his score, Kodály wrote Galánta is a small Hungarian market town known to travellers between Vienna and Budapest. The composer spent seven years of his childhood there. At that time there existed a famous Gypsy band. Its playing was the first “orchestral” sonority that came to the ears of the child. Kodály patterned his Dances of Galánta after the Verbunkos, the typical Hungarian military recruiting dance. The first three sections of the piece, in a slow tempo, are the lassú (slow), and the final four sections, with increasingly frenetic tempo, are the friss (fresh).

With Nina Schumann as soloist, George Gershwin’s iconic Rhapsody in Blue introduces a different ambience to the evening’s musical ethos. Originally composed for solo piano and jazz band, the work rapidly attained its legendary status in concert halls around the globe. To the point that the American Heritage magazine justly posited that the work’s celebrated opening clarinet glissando had become as instantly recognizable to concert audiences as the opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

After interval we turn to highlights from the heroic oratorio, Judas Maccabeus, by George Friderick Handel, the composer whom Beethoven revered above all others. A token of his esteem for the great Baroque master is reflected in the glorious set of variations he wrote for piano and cello, based on the mighty chorus, ‘See the Conquering Hero Comes’ from the famous oratorio.

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