Rachmaninoff the Wall
by Russell Johnston
Though the Nashville Symphony’s search for a new conductor ended happily with the arrival of Maestro Giancarlo Guerrero, world-renowned Leonard Slatkin remains aboard as Music Advisor and still takes up the baton at the Schermerhorn Center from time to time. Slatkin, a seven-time Grammy winner who directed the Saint Louis Symphony for close to two decades, leads this weekend’s Classical Series concerts. The featured guest artist is soprano Hila Plitmann, an ethereal-voiced contemporary music specialist who just took a Grammy herself (Best Classical Vocal) for her recording of John Corigliano’s setting of Bob Dylan lyrics. Plitmann will sing Time Cycle by German-born American composer Lukas Foss, who passed away just a few weeks ago. The somewhat experimental song cycle was first championed by Leonard Bernstein and won Foss the Critics’ Circle Award 1961; it draws its diverse texts from Kafka, Auden, Housman, and Nietzsche. The program also features Mozart’s ever-popular Symphony No. 40 in G minor, and Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 1, a work which fared poorly in the composer’s lifetime but was revived after the composer’s death to become part of the standard orchestral repertoire.
Thu., Feb. 26, 7 p.m.; Fri., Feb. 27, 8 p.m.; Sat., Feb. 28, 8 p.m., 2009
Thu., Feb. 26, 7 p.m.; Fri., Feb. 27, 8 p.m.; Sat., Feb. 28, 8 p.m., 2009
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