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Warsaw Philharmonic starts US tour with standing ovation

PR dla Zagranicy
Paweł Kononczuk 25.10.2016 12:57
The Warsaw Philharmonic and South Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho were given a standing ovation after a concert on Monday at New York’s Lincoln Center.
Photo: pexels.comPhoto: pexels.com

It was the opening event of the orchestra’s 11-concert tour of the United States.

The programme of the concert, conducted by the Warsaw orchestra’s music director Jacek Kaspszyk, included Chopin’s Piano Concerto in E major.

Seong-Jin Cho, winner of the first prize in the 2015 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, was the soloist.

The concert also included a performance of Brahms’s Tragic Overture and the Fourth Symphony by Mieczysław Weinberg, whose music has undergone a revival in Europe in recent years.

Referring to Weinberg, Kaspszyk told the Polish Press Agency: “Here we have yet another great Polish composer, unjustly forgotten, whose music is receiving an excellent reception worldwide.”

New York-based Polish pianist and critic Roman Markowicz described Weinberg’s symphony as a work of great merit, strongly inspired by Shostakovich.

“I think Kaspszyk made a fantastic decision to include it on the programme of the tour and he should continue to promote this music, in concerts and recordings,” Markowicz said.

Born in Warsaw in 1919, Weinberg was a Polish Jew who escaped the Nazis by fleeing to the Soviet Union.

In 1943 he settled in Moscow, where he worked as a composer and pianist.

In 1953, he was arrested as part of Stalin’s anti-Semitic purges, but was released after Stalin’s death thanks to support from his close friend Dmitri Shostakovich.

He died in Moscow in 1999, leaving a vast output of 27 symphonies, 17 string quartets, six operas and film soundtracks.

The Warsaw Philharmonic’s US tour ends on 7 November in Santa Barbara, California. (mk/pk)

tags: music
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