The Peabody Symphony Orchestra wraps up its concert season as it began ? showcasing the brightest and best of its own.
This Saturday, faculty artist and alumnus David Hardy will perform in Stephen Jaffe?s Concerto for Violoncello.
“We were so fortunate to get him,” Music Director Hajime Teri Murai said. “He is a wonderful artist.”
Hardy, a Baltimore native, is the principal cellist of the National Symphony Orchestra, where he performed Jaffe?s piece in its world premiere in January 2004.
“It is one of the most difficult pieces for violoncello and full orchestra,” Murai said. “There is a lot of variety in color and lyric.”
Stephen Jaffe, on the faculty at Duke University, is a prolific composer.
Of his Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Abe Jones of the Greensboro News & Record wrote that the music “speaks in a voice clearly of the present, yet juxtaposed against earlier musical traditions.”
Murai will conduct the evening’s repertoire which also includes a piece entitled Network by Peabody?s composition faculty member, Kevin Putts.
“This is a wonderful piece, Murai said. “It is five minutes long and [written] in five sections based on a 16-note pattern that builds to all the voices of the orchestra.”
While Putts says his style has changed since writing the piece 10 years ago, it represents the fascination he had at the time of the “great beauty, freshness, and rhythmic energy” of minimalist composers like Steve Reich, Philip Glass and John Adams.
The concert will close with Symphony No. 5 in B-flat, Op.100 by Serge Prokofiev. Its premiere in January 1945 in the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory by the USSR State Symphony Orchestra was conducted by the composer himself.
“This is a virtuoso piece for full orchestra,” Murai said, noting that the work showcases one of Prokofiev?s greatest strengths: It is melodic in a vocal sense yet could never be sung. Among other elements, the piece features a three-octave range for the strings.
The piece has remained over the years as one of Prokofiev?s most popular works.
IF YOU GO
Peabody Symphony Orchestra
» Venue: Miriam A Friedberg Concert Hall, Peabody Institute, 17 East Mount Vernon Place, Baltimore
» Time: 8 p.m. Saturday
» Tickets: $18/$10 for seniors and $8 for students
» More info: Peabody Box Office, 410-659-8100 ext. 2
