Details:
Geoffrey Robson, conductor
Andrius Žlabys, piano
Richard Strauss: Don Juan
Florence Price: Ethiopia’s Shadow in America
Johannes Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2
Join the notorious Spanish rake on his legendary quest to find the perfect woman with Richard Strauss’ Don Juan. Written in 1888, Don Juan has been keeping musicians up at night ever since. The technical challenges of this piece are legendary, and you’ll be right there as the artists of the Greenville Symphony bring their years of training and incredible skill to bear for the realization of this work.
Prolific Arkansan composer Florence Price wrote Ethiopia’s Shadow in America in 1932, but it was lost along with many of her other compositions until rediscovered in an abandoned home in Illinois in 2009. While her music is neo-romantic in style, it is thoroughly American and unmistakably Southern. Price is the first African-American woman composer to have a work performed by a major American orchestra.
Brahms jokingly called Piano Concerto No. 2 “a tiny concerto,” and when you hear it, you’ll laugh too, because the last thing anyone would call this intensely dramatic and passionate piece is tiny. The composer premiered the concerto himself in Budapest in 1881, and dedicated it to his childhood piano teacher. We were fortunate to get GRAMMY-nominated pianist Andrius Žlabys as our soloist for this experience and can’t wait to hear him fill Peace Center Concert Hall with Brahms’ “tiny” tribute to his mentor.
