Gil Shaham plays Korngold with Vienna Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall (March 16)
For the past two decades, Avery Fisher Prize-winner Gil Shaham has proven himself one of the foremost exponents of Korngold’s Violin Concerto. Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “brilliant, almost ecstatic,” his way with the work is such that when the Vienna Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta bring the quintessentially Viennese classic to Carnegie Hall on March 16, it is Shaham – an American – who is their soloist of choice. The Korngold also serves as the vehicle for the master violinist’s upcoming collaborations with the National Symphony under James Conlon at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC (April 10-12); the Houston Symphony led by John Adams (Jan 31–Feb 2); the Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst, during their annual Miami residency (Jan 24-27); the symphony orchestras of St. Louis (March 21 & 22) and Austin (April 4 & 5); and the Orchestre de Paris in France (Feb 19). Beyond the concert hall, Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for unaccompanied violin also figure prominently in Shaham’s winter programming, which includes solo recital tours of the U.S. and Italy, with dates in Kansas City, MO (Feb 5), Cleveland, OH (Feb 6), Denver, CO (Feb 9), and Baltimore, MD (Feb 23), as well as in Rome (Feb 14) and Florence (Feb 15).
Erich Korngold’s soulfully nostalgic Violin Concerto (1947) draws on the Jewish-Viennese composer’s own film scores from the Golden Age of Hollywood. As the Wall Street Journal explains, “like the rest of his music and his whole career, [the concerto] mixes sadness and sweetness, regret and exultation, and in the end becomes its own affirmative consolation.” It was in part with Korngold’s midcentury masterwork that Shaham – now a Musical America “Instrumentalist of the Year” – first cemented his post-prodigy reputation 20 years ago; his 1994 Deutsche Grammophon recording of the virtuosic work, in which he brought “his trademark elegance and extreme precision to bear, digging under the work’s showy surface” (New York Times), remains a gold standard by which more recent examples are judged.
In anticipation of his next recording project, the Grammy Award-winner also foregrounds Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin this winter. He considers this repertoire “a spiritual journey,” and in his hands that is how it impresses his listeners; one of his recent unaccompanied Bach recitals was called “transcendent” by the San Diego Story, which went on to marvel:
“Shaham’s unaccompanied Bach Suite was nothing less than a religious experience. He employed his quiet repeats and cradling contrasts to bring the audience into a more serene and contemplative mode of listening. … Shaham the performer disappeared and for a few moments suspended in time, like Moses in the cleft of the rock, we saw the Divine pass by.”
In Denver and Kansas City, Shaham juxtaposes Bach’s masterpieces with a contemporary American contribution to the unaccompanied violin literature: Pulitzer Prize-winner William Bolcom’s Suite No. 2 for solo violin, which is one of several important new commissions written for and premiered by the violinist himself. When he played Bolcom’s suite in Boston’s Celebrity Series last season, the Boston Globe described the work as “nine character pieces leveraging Shaham’s ability to create perfectly honed moments.”
A list of the master violinist’s upcoming engagements follows, and additional information is available at his website: www.gilshaham.com.
Gil Shaham: upcoming engagements
Jan 14
Berlin, Germany
Berg: Violin Concerto
Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra / Marek Janowski
Jan 16 & 17
Munich, Germany
Berg: Violin Concerto
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra / Mariss Jansons
Jan 18
Paris, France
Berg: Violin Concerto
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra / Mariss Jansons
Jan 24 & 25
Miami, FL
Korngold: Violin Concerto
Cleveland Orchestra / Franz Welser-Möst
Jan 27
Naples, FL
Korngold: Violin Concerto
Cleveland Orchestra / Franz Welser-Möst
Philharmonic Center for the Arts
Jan 31; Feb 1 & 2
Houston, TX
Korngold: Violin Concerto
Houston Symphony / John Adams
Feb 5
Kansas City, MO
Harriman-Jewell Series of William Jewell College
Solo recital
Bach: Sonata No. 2; Partitas Nos. 2 & 3
William Bolcom: Suite No. 2 for solo violin
Feb 6
Cleveland, OH
Cleveland Museum of Art
Solo recital
Bach: Sonata No. 2; Partitas Nos. 2 & 3
Feb 9
Denver, CO
Friends of Chamber Music
Solo recital
Bach: Sonata No. 2; Partitas Nos. 2 & 3
William Bolcom: Suite No. 2 for solo violin
Feb 14
Rome, Italy
Solo recital: Bach, Bolcom
Feb 15
Florence, Italy
Solo recital: Bach, Bolcom
Feb 17
Munich, Germany
Chamber concert: Bach, Mendelssohn
Feb 19
Paris, France
Korngold: Violin Concerto
Orchestre de Paris / James Gaffigan
Salle Pleyel
Feb 23
Baltimore, MD
Shriver Hall Concert Series
Solo recital
Bach: Sonatas Nos. 1 & 2; Partita No. 1
Feb 27–March 2
San Francisco, CA
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2
San Francisco Symphony / Michael Tilson Thomas
March 16
New York, NY
Korngold: Violin Concerto
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra / Zubin Mehta
Carnegie Hall – Isaac Stern Auditorium
March 21 & 22
St. Louis, MO
Korngold: Violin Concerto
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra / David Robertson
Powell Symphony Hall
April 4 & 5
Austin, TX
Korngold: Violin Concerto
Austin Symphony Orchestra / Peter Bay
April 10-12
Washington, DC
Korngold: Violin Concerto
National Symphony Orchestra / James Conlon
Kennedy Center Concert Hall
April 24, 25 & 27
Los Angeles, CA
Bartók: Violin Concerto No. 2
Los Angeles Philharmonic / Stéphane Denève
Walt Disney Concert Hall
April 26
Costa Mesa, CA
Bartók: Violin Concerto No. 2
Los Angeles Philharmonic / Stéphane Denève
www.gilshaham.com
www.facebook.com/gilshaham
twitter.com/gilshaham
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© 21C Media Group, January 2014