Mendelssohn’s Third Symphony Headlines Nashville Symphony Performances on November 17-18
GRAMMY®-winner Augustin Hadelich opens program with Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto
Nashville, TN (November 10, 2017) — The Nashville Symphony’s Aegis Sciences Classical Series continues on November 17-18 with “Guerrero Conducts Mendelssohn,” as Music Director Giancarlo Guerrero and the orchestra perform Felix Mendelssohn’s vivid and expressive Third Symphony and Dmitri Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto, featuring renowned soloist Augustin Hadelich.
Tickets start at $20 with the promo code FALL, and the Symphony’s Soundcheck program offers $10 tickets to students in K-12, college, and grad school.
Date night packages – which include two tickets, two glasses of wine and Goo Goo chocolates – are available starting at $68 for both performances, and all November 17 ticket purchases include admittance to Happy Hour at the ’Horn, a pre-concert event featuring live music by Latin ensemble Serenatta, discounts on select wine and beers, snacks from Prohibition Popcorn and prize giveaways.
One of the most influential musicians of the Romantic era, Mendelssohn took up piano at age 6 and was already a prolific composer by his teens, finishing his First Symphony when he was only 15. Later in life, he founded the Leipzig Conservatory, which became a bastion for Mendelssohn’s conservative musical styles that set him apart from most of his more adventurous contemporaries at the time.
The Third, known as his “Scottish” Symphony, was inspired by a trip Mendelssohn took to Scotland, where he was moved by the ruins of Holyroodhouse Palace in Edinburgh – the dark and forbidding 16th-century residence of Mary Queen of Scots, where the monarch witnessed the murder of her private secretary, who was also suspected of being her lover.
Lauded for his technique, poetic sensitivity and gorgeous tone, violinist Augustin Hadelich first rose to prominence when he was named Gold Medalist at the 2006 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. Since then, he has carved out an impressive career as a soloist, recitalist and recording artist, performing with nearly every major American orchestra and a growing number of orchestras in Europe and Asia. In addition to his 2016 GRAMMY® win for Best Classical Instrumental Solo on Dutilleux’s violin concerto L’arbre des songes, Hadelich has garnered a long list of honors and awards, including an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2009 and the inaugural Warner Music Prize in 2015.
A highly demanding work that hardly allows the soloist to take a break, Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto was kept locked away in a desk drawer for nearly a decade because the composer feared that it would not be approved by Soviet authorities. Dedicated to Soviet violinist David Oistrakh, who premiered and later toured it in the United States, the piece is a spectacular showcase for the soloist, who is required to perform practically athletic feats on the violin.
Tickets for Guerrero Conducts Mendelssohn may be purchased:
- Online at NashvilleSymphony.org/Mendelssohn
- Via phone at 615.687.6400
- At the Schermerhorn Symphony Center Box Office, One Symphony Place in downtown Nashville
More information and full program notes can be found at: www.nashvillesymphony.org/mendelssohn.
The GRAMMY® Award-winning Nashville Symphony has earned an international reputation for its innovative programming and its commitment to performing, recording and commissioning works by America’s leading composers. The Nashville Symphony has released 28 recordings on Naxos, which have received 20 GRAMMY® nominations and 11 GRAMMY® Awards, making it one of the most active recording orchestras in the country. With more than 170 performances annually, the orchestra offers a broad range of classical, pops and jazz, and children’s concerts, while its extensive education and community engagement programs reach up to 60,000children and adults each year.
