Young and promising Spanish conductor Jaume Santonja will lead the orchestra in another popular and receptive program. After Sergei Rachmaninov’s The Isle of the Dead, one of the stars of our season, Andrei Korobeinikov, brings a thematic contrast. Piano Concerto No. 2 by Dmitri Shostakovich is a work that is generally less represented in concert programs. The composer wrote it for his son Maxim, who premiered the work at his graduation concert at the Moscow Conservatory. This work is atypical for Shostakovich’s usual stylistic expression; it is sunny and cheerful in character, with a lively dance finale in which the author has incorporated some motifs of technical piano exercises as a humorous allusion to his son’s completion of his schooling. The program is rounded off by Symphony No. 1 by Jan Sibelius, a work that brought the 35-year-old author international recognition and a tour of the cities of Scandinavia and northern Europe after its Finnish premiere.

Program Notes