2 Prime Tickets to the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall on either 3/19/11 or 4/29/11 :

March 19 Program: Mozart, Waves and Buchbinder:

A masterpiece in miniature, Roussel’s Concerto for Small Orchestra evokes the spirit of the classical concerto grosso of a highly-charged interplay of solo instruments while speaking in a distinctively modern voice – a perfect match for Orpheus! The esteemed pianist, Rudolf Buchbinder, one of Austria’s greats and a true “pianist’s pianist”, joins us on Mozart’s restless and dark Piano Concerto No. 20, which ends the first half of our program with a jubilant D major finish. Orpheus will revive Fred Lerdahl’s Waves, a piece that Orpheus commissioned, premiered, and recorded in the 1980s, and will end with Mozart’s Symphony No. 39, exhibiting Mozart’s sunniest and most optimistic work in the symphonic form.

Steinbacher, Hartmann & London, April 29:

Young, German violinist Arabella Steinbacher joins us for Hartmann’s notoriously difficult and rarely performed Concerto Funebre as well as Mozart’ Rondo in C major and Adagio in E major. Hartmann’s concerto was written at the beginning of WWII and was inspired by his feelings about the Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia. Composers’ early and late works appropriately begin and end our program: Strauss’ Serenade in E-flat major, which he wrote at the tender age of eighteen, opens the concert and Haydn’s final symphony— Symphony No. 104 “London” – will bring the program to a richly melodic conclusion.