Mussorgsky
Night on Bald Mountain

Shostakovich
Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat
Cynthia Racine, cello

Borodin
Symphony No. 2 in b minor

David BernardGuest Conductor

Stravinsky
“Firebird” Suite (1919)

Rimsky-Korsakov
Scheherazade

We welcome guest conductor David Bernard, music director of the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, and an internationally-recognized conductor, to lead the orchestra in a program dedicated to storytelling through musical tone painting. The brilliant orchestration and vivid colors brimming from Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite depicts a tale of a prince freeing his beloved from the spell of an evil spirit. Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade”, featuring the BSO’s co-concertmaster Hannah Finkelberg, depicts the powerful narratives of “The Arabian Nights”—including the alluring storyteller Scheherazade, shipwrecks, thieves and the bustling markets in ancient Baghdad—with a captivating combination of energy and passion.

Offenbach
“Orpheus in the Underworld” Overture

Fauré
“Pelleas et Melisande” Suite

Walton
“Façade” Suites 1 & 2

Gershwin
An American in Paris

At the top of the concert several movements from William Walton’s orchestral suite based on his 1922 “Façade, an Entertainment,” settings of surreal poems by Edith Sitwell. Finally, George Gershwin’s inimitable ballet music “An American in Paris.” We may need to import real Rio taxi cabs!

Tchaikovsky
“Romeo and Juliet” Fantasy Overture
Felipe Tristan, BSO Assistant Conductor

Rimsky-Korsakov
Capriccio Espagnole

de Falla
El sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat or Le tricorne)

Ravel
Bolero

The BSO’s assistant conductor Felipe Tristan begins this program with Tchaikowsky’s musical depiction of Shakespeare’s tragedy – soaring love theme and swordfights included! Maestro Nick Armstrong continues with three Spanish-flavored works, the highly colorful “Capriccio Espagnole,” de Falla’s “El sombrero de tres picos ", and – bring on the snare drum players – Ravel’s “Bolero” which he described as one huge orchestral crescendo…. Shades of Rossini?

Rossini
Overture to “Semiramide” 

Bartok
Viola Concerto
Hsin-Yun Huang, soloist

Beethoven
Symphony No. 7 in A


“Semiramide,” Rossini’s opera seria, begins with this riotously festive overture, containing one of Rossini’s most delightful “crescendo” passages. Bartok’s Viola Concerto, in the hands of celebrated soloist Hsin-Yun Huang, shows the composer’s feelings at the end of his life, the devastation of WWII, but also his profound love for the folk music of his native Hungary. Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony ends this first program, the lilting masterpiece that Richard Wagner dubbed “the Apotheosis of the Dance.”