Daniel Hope kicks off his 11th Savannah Music Festival March 21
Daniel Hope – whom the New Yorker has called “an artist of both dazzle and depth” – is looking forward to his 11th season as Associate Artistic Director of the Savannah Music Festival in Georgia, which this year lasts from March 21 to April 5. Hope will collaborate at the festival with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and conductor Robert Spano, as well as with such frequent musical partners as pianist Sebastian Knauer, violinist Lorenza Borrani and tenor Michael Schade. The repertoire will range from Schubert to Brahms to Vaughan Williams, and will include the U.S. premiere of a work by composer David Bruce. Along with soloing in Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Atlanta Symphony in Savannah (March 22), Hope will also perform Max Richter’s Vivaldi Recomposed (March 26), a contemporary re-imagining of The Four Seasons. The violinist enjoyed an international hit with his Deutsche Grammophon recording of the work, and iTunes named the release its Best Contemporary Classical Album for 2012. Immediately prior to the festival, Hope joins pianist and longtime collaborator Sebastian Knauer on March 18 at the Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida for “A celebration of Joseph Joachim,” an homage to the great 19th-century Austro-Hungarian violin virtuoso and focus of Hope’s 2011 Deutsche Grammophon release The Romantic Violinist: A Celebration of Joseph Joachim. On April 6, the night following the final Savannah performance of his residency, Hope will return to the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to perform in a program of Bartók, Ives, Prokofiev and Korngold.
The Savannah Music Festival commissions and stages original, one-time only productions, collaborations and premieres over a three-week period every spring. Discussing the ethos of the festival with the Wall Street Journal, Hope said: “Savannah’s hallmark is its cultural diversity, and on any given day our programs range from, say, the Baroque to Brahms to Edgar Meyer, from Fauré to Portuguese fado, from Béla Fleck to Chris Thile. It’s a celebration of music in all its many forms.” Hope’s 2010 DG recording of Vivaldi concertos and chamber music was nominated for a Grammy Award, and on March 26 in Savannah, the program “Celebrating Vivaldi” will see the violinist join NPR’s “Performance Today” host Fred Child on the air to discuss Vivaldi prior to the concert. Hope will then play Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Violins in A minor (RV 522) with Lorenza Borrani, star concertmaster of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe; and on the program’s second half will perform Vivaldi Reimagined with members of the Atlanta Symphony. About Richter’s work, Hope has said: “Max’s reworking of the score has stimulated my hearing and at the same time given me a new appetite for Vivaldi.”
On March 31, the finale of Hope’s residency in Savannah this season, the violinist will feature in the U.S. premiere of British-American composer David Bruce’s The Given Note, a co-commission by the Savannah Music Festival and Germany’s Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (where Hope led the world premiere in 2011). Bruce’s 35-minute chamber work for violin, clarinet, guitar, cello and bass was inspired by the traditional Irish folk song “Port na bPúcaí” and a poem on it by the late Seamus Heaney. Bruce says: “The Given Note is taken from the name of a poem by Heaney, who uses it to discuss the intriguing origins of the ‘Port na bPúcaí’ song. I understood the beautiful poem to be a meditation on the unfathomable origins of all music, all art, all inspiration. In a way, they are ‘given’ to us from somewhere mysterious, and although in the modern world we might laugh at the quaint concept of ‘fairies,’ when you think about the intangible origins of art, perhaps the idea isn’t so wide of the mark.”
Hope returns to his friends at the Chamber Music of Lincoln Center for an April 6 program titled “Destination America: New Masters,” which celebrates the depth and diversity of the 20th-century American musical landscape by presenting Bartók’s Contrasts for Violin, Clarinet & Piano, Ives’ Largo for Clarinet, Violin & Piano, Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata in D Major and Korngold’s Piano Quintet in E Major. Each of these composers worked in the U.S., whether they were born here (Ives), drawn to new opportunities (Prokofiev) or displaced by war (Bartók and Korngold). The history of composers displaced and persecuted during World War II has long been a focus of Hope’s work. Last year, DG released the DVD of the documentary Refuge in Music, which pays tribute to the musicians who were interned in the concentration camp Terezín (aka Theresienstadt). The documentary includes the violinist’s own interviews with camp survivors, including pianist Alice Herz-Sommer who passed away recently at 110 years old, intercut with live concert footage of chamber music composed at Terezín and similar camps, performed by Hope, mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, baritone Christian Gerhaher, pianist Bengt Forsberg, and accordionist, bassist and guitarist Bebe Risenfors. A video trailer is available here.
Daniel Hope: upcoming engagements
March 18
Fort Lauderdale, Florida: Broward Center
Sebastian Knauer, piano
“A celebration of Joseph Joachim”
Brahms: Scherzo from the FAE Sonata
Clara Schumann: Romanze Op. 22 No 1
Brahms: Violin Sonata No 1 in G major, Opus 78
Mendelssohn: Two Lieder (“Auf Flugeln des Gesanges,” “Hexenlied”)
Joachim: Romanze Op. 2 No. 1
Grieg: Sonata No 3 in C minor
March 21
Savannah, GA
Trinity United Methodist Church
Daniel Hope and Friends: with Lorenza Borrani, violin; Benny Kim, violin; Carla Maria Rodrigues, viola; Eric Kim, cello; Keith Robinson, cello; and Sebastian Knauer, piano)
Mozart: Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat Major, K. 493
Brahms: Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34 (arr. by Anthony Gray, w/o piano)
Bartók: Duets for Two Violins
March 22
Savannah, GA
Lucas Theatre for the Arts
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
Robert Spano, conductor
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 63
Mahler: Symphony No. 4 in G Major, with Jessica Rivera, soprano
March 23
Savannah, GA
Lucas Theatre for the Arts
Celebrating Vivaldi
Daniel Hope and Lorenza Borrani, violin with Members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; featuring Fred Child of NPR’s “Performance Today”
Vivaldi: Concerto for Two Violins in a minor, RV 522
Westhoff: Imitazione delle Campane
Richter: Vivaldi Recomposed
March 26
Savannah, GA
Trinity United Methodist Church
Daniel Hope and Friends: Dvorak’s Bass Quintet (with Lorenza Borrani, violin; Benny Kim, violin; Carla Maria Rodrigues, viola; Eric Kim, cello; Keith Robinson, cello; Joseph Conyers, bass; and Sebastian Knauer, piano)
Mozart: Piano Trio No. 4 in E Major, K. 542
Dvorak: String Quintet (w/ double bass) No. 2 in G Major, Op. 77
March 27
Savannah, GA
Trinity United Methodist Church
Daniel Hope and Friends with Michael Schade, Program I (with Lorenza Borrani, violin; Benny Kim, violin; Carla Maria Rodrigues, viola; Eric Kim, cello; Keith Robinson, cello; Joseph Conyers, bass; Sebastian Knauer, piano; Simon Crawford-Phillips, piano; and Michael Schade, tenor)
Vaughan Williams: Four Sacred Songs
Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60
Vaughan Williams: On Wenlock Edge
Beethoven: Piano Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 16
Wienerlieder arrangements: “Im Prater,“ “Mei Muatterl, “ “Wien Wien nur Du Allein, “ “Dein ist mein ganzes Herz, “ “Freunde das Leben ist Lebenswert, “ “Ringelspiel“
March 28
Savannah, GA
Trinity United Methodist Church
Daniel Hope and Friends with Michael Schade, Program II (with Lorenza Borrani, violin; Benny Kim, violin; Carla Maria Rodrigues, viola; Eric Kim, cello; Keith Robinson, cello; Joseph Conyers, bass; Sebastian Knauer, piano; and Michael Schade, tenor)
Vaughan Williams: Selections from Along the Field
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 4, Op.18
Schubert: A selection of Lieder
Strauss: Morgen, Op. 27
Schubert: String Quartet No. 14, D 810 (“Death and the Maiden“)
March 30
Savannah, GA
Trinity United Methodist Church
Daniel Hope and Friends: English Masterpieces (with Lorenza Borrani, violin; Benny Kim, violin; Carla Maria Rodrigues, viola; Eric Kim, cello; Joseph Conyers, cello; Simon Crawford-Phillips, piano; and Sebastian Knauer, piano)
Vaughan Williams: Piano Quintet in C minor
Bridge: Selections from Miniatures, H. 87-89
Elgar: Piano Quintet in a minor, Op. 84
March 31
Savannah, GA
Charles H. Morris Center
With Daniel Hope, Julian Lage, guitar; Mike Block, cello; José Franch-Ballester, clarinet; and Rodney Jordan, bass
David Bruce: The Given Note (U.S. premiere; Savannah Music Festival co-commission with Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern)
April 6
New York, NY
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
Destination America: New Masters
With Gloria Chien, piano; Wu Han, piano; Yura Lee, violin; Paul Neubauer, viola; David Finckel, cello; Romie de Guise-Langlois, clarinet
Bartók: Contrasts for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano, Sz. 111, BB 116
Ives: Largo for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano
Prokofiev: Sonata in D major for Violin and Piano, Op. 94a
Korngold: Quintet in E major for Piano, Two Violins, Viola, and Cello, Op. 15
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© 21C Media Group, February 2014