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Jim Kelly, Marketing Manager - Albany Symphony
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Featuring Tchaikovsky’s mighty First Piano Concerto with soloist Yuval Chen, Multi-GRAMMY Award-Winning Composer, Michael Daugherty, and much, much more!
Celebratory After-Party to Follow Program
ALBANY, NY – The two-time GRAMMY Award-winning Albany Symphony is thrilled to open its 2024-2025 season, which features Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, Michael Daugherty’s Passacaglia in Primary Colors, and Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 4, “The Inextinguishable.” The concert will take place at the Palace Theatre in Albany on Saturday, October 19, beginning at 7:30pm. A celebratory reception will follow: tickets.albanysymphony.com
“We are thrilled to launch our 2024-2025 season with a gorgeous, passionate program celebrating the glory of great music,” said Music Director David Alan Miller. “We’ll open with a dazzling orchestral tour-de-force by our longtime friend, composer Michael Daugherty. We are so excited to welcome the brilliant young pianist, Yuval Chen, to join us for the centerpiece of our program, Tchaikovsky’s breathtaking Piano Concerto No. 1. The program will conclude with Carl Nielsen’s amazing orchestral masterpiece, his Symphony No. 4, “The Inextinguishable,” which captures in music the “life force” which makes all creation possible. Throughout the season, we invite everyone to join us for bold explorations of extraordinary, life-changing music. As we celebrate 95 years of glorious music new and old, we hope you’ll join us for the journey!”
Multiple GRAMMY Award-winning composer Michael Daugherty has achieved international recognition, and is currently one of the ten most-performed American composers of concert music. His orchestral music, recorded by Naxos over the last two decades, has earned six GRAMMY Awards, including Best Contemporary Classical Composition in 2011 for Deus ex Machina, and in 2017, for Tales of Hemingway. Daugherty was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and is the son of a dance-band drummer and the oldest of five brothers, all professional musicians. As a young person, Daugherty studied composition with many of the preeminent composers of the 20th century including Pierre Boulez, Jacob Druckman, and György Ligeti. Daugherty was also an assistant to jazz arranger Gil Evans. Daugherty is Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance, where he is a mentor to many of today’s most talented young composers.
Passacaglia in Primary Colors began life as the final movement of Fifteen: Symphonic Fantasy on the Art of Andy Warhol, which was commissioned and premiered by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 2021 in celebration of the orchestra’s 125th anniversary. It now also exists as a stand-alone piece. “My work was inspired by the art of Andy Warhol, famous for being the world’s most recognizable proponent of Pop Art, and for his wry quotation: ‘In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes,’” said Daugherty. Through his portraits of icons, celebrities and commercial objects, Warhol developed a provocative hybrid of realism and abstraction expressed through bright colors and repetition. In 1994, the Andy Warhol Museum opened in Pittsburgh with the most complete collection of Warhol’s artwork and artifacts.
Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1, is arguably the most famous and most recognizable piano concerto in music history. It is famed for sequences of pounding chords and extraordinary virtuosity on the part of the soloist. Its original dedicatee, Nikolas Rubenstein, refused to perform it, claiming it was impossible to play. It was premiered instead in 1875 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Hans von Bülow.
Pianist Yuval Chen was born in Israel and has been performing as a soloist from a young age, including notable performances with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra and at the esteemed Aspen Music Festival. His achievements include 1st prize at the Audience Award in the Aviv competition, and success at the International Dublin Piano Competition. Yuval's musical journey began at the age of seven, and he studied with Inna Rubin at the Ra’anana Music Center in Israel. Other teachers include Asaf Zohar at the Buchmann-Mehta School of music at Tel-Aviv University and Veda Kaplinsky at the Juilliard School, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees and is pursuing his Artist Diploma.
The program will conclude with Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 4, “The Inextinguishable.” Composed against the backdrop of World War I, this symphony is widely considered Nielsen’s masterpiece, ending with a battle between two sets of timpani. Nielsen was thinking about a new symphony in 1914 and wrote this to his wife, Celle. “I have an idea for a new composition, which has no programme but will express what we understand by the spirit of life or manifestations of life, that is: everything that moves, that wants to live ... just life and motion, though varied – very varied – yet connected, and as if constantly on the move, in one big movement or stream. I must have a word or a short title to express this; that will be enough. I cannot quite explain what I want, but what I want is good.” In his notes for the symphony, Nielsen refers to "the elemental will to live."
(Note: the world premiere of Tania León’s Pregón, commissioned by the League of American Orchestras in honor of Jesse Rosen, which was scheduled to be performed on this evening’s concert, has been postponed.)
The 2024-2025 season runs from October through the American Music Festival in June. It will include the Water Music NY: More Voices Festival, a Symphony Side-by-Side with the Empire State Youth Orchestra (ESYO), Magic of Christmas, Tiny Tots concerts for young people, and more! Season subscriptions are available and offer flexibility, convenience, and price savings. Through the Nielsen Associates’ Student Access Program, students can purchase discount subscriptions and enjoy the full benefits of being a subscriber for as little as $45. To purchase a subscription or single tickets, visit albanysymphony.com or call the Box Office at 518-694-3300.