West Michigan Symphony's Season Finale to Feature Guest Pianist Alessio Bax

MUSKEGON, MI, May 16, 2013

West Michigan Symphony will feature guest pianist Alessio Bax for its season finale on May 31 and June 1.

The weekend performance will feature:

Dmitri Shostakovich's "Festive Overture" Op. 96
Richard Strauss' "Don Juan" Op. 20, a tone poem after Nikolaus Lenau
Johannes Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 38, in B flat major with pianist Alessio Bax
More information, as well as expanded program notes with audio samples, is available online at the Symphony's website. Both concerts will be held in the majestic Frauenthal Center for Performing Arts in downtown Muskegon at 7:30 p.m.

"We have had a spectacular 2012-13 season, and I am pleased to welcome Alessio to help us close out our spectacular season in style," said West Michigan Symphony Music Director Scott Speck. "An incredibly talented pianist who has a promising international career, he will amaze concertgoers with his powerful rendition of the Brahms' concerto, one of the most challenging and rewarding in the repertoire.

"I am thrilled that we're finally performing a Brahms piano concerto and a Strauss tone poem for the first time in more than a decade."

The weekend concert will open with Shostakovich's "Festive Overture" Op. 96. Shostakovich composed the overture at the request of a desperate conductor of the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra, who needed a new composition to open the festivities celebrating the 37th anniversary of the Russian October Revolution. The overture begins with a rather conventional fanfare but goes on to develop a series of themes bearing some of the distinct Shostakovich trademarks of style and orchestration, but in an upbeat "Soviet sanitation," shorn of the acerbic bitterness of his serious - and often private - works.

Strauss' tone poem offers a purely instrumental rendition of Lenau's "Don Juan." While the piece was the composer's third, it was the first to be publicly performed and gained him international recognition. The principal theme, incorporating an orchestral fanfare and an upward-swooping melody, is a composite musical idea expressing the hero's wild abandon. Three subsidiary themes follow, each representing one of the Don's conquests; a soaring violin solo, a gasping flute theme and a sultry Spanish oboe melody all develop alongside the restless motives of the Don.
The second half of the tone poem begins with the so-called "carnival scene" that corresponds to Lenau's masked ball. The Don's conscience is haunted by the recurring themes of his former lovers, prompting him to grow increasingly manic. Wandering despondently through a churchyard, he comes upon the statue of a nobleman whom he has killed, and in a final act of bravado invites him to supper.
Instead of the stone guest, the nobleman's son arrives seeking revenge. Don Juan puts up a valiant fight, until suddenly the music halts and a minor chord precedes a blast on the trumpets as Don Juan surrenders to his adversary and his despair - the opposite of Don Giovanni's fiery defiance.

The final piece, Johannes Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 38, in B flat major, will feature Italian pianist Alessio Bax.

Bax has been praised for creating "a ravishing listening experience," with playing that is dazzling, lyrical and insightful. He has appeared as a soloist with more than 90 orchestras and has received first prize at the Leeds and Hamamatsu piano competitions and the 2013 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award.

He is also a recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Earlier this year, Bax debuted at Carnegie Hall. Last summer marked Bax's first appearance at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival and the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival and a return to the Bard Music Festival, along with five more festival performances. He has several CDs to his credit and expects to release a recording of Mozart piano concertos this summer.

Bax graduated with top honors at the record age of 14 from the conservatory of his hometown in Bari, Italy. He studied in France with Françios-Joël Thiollier and attended the Chigiana Academy in Siena under Joaquín Achúcarro. He moved to Dallas in 1994 to continue his studies with Achúcarro at SMU's Meadow's School of the Arts, where he is now a member of the teaching faculty. He and his wife, pianist Lucille Chung, reside in New York City.

"Alessio Bax has been on our radar screen for years," said Speck. "How great that he is gaining new international recognition just as he makes his first appearance with the West Michigan Symphony."

The first movement of the Brahms' piece vacillates between dignified serenity and high drama. The first half of the opening theme is a gentle call on a solo French horn echoed by the piano, which continues with a series of growls and a grand arch of arpeggios over five and a half octaves before launching into a cadenza.

Brahms called the second movement a scherzo, the Italian word for game or joke. But this game is deadly serious, passionate and even angry with syncopated, driving momentum, a temporary second quieter theme and finally a scherzo cadence that almost crashes into the trio with a fanfare-like theme - then is cut short by the return of the scherzo.

By the time he premiered his second concerto in 1881, Brahms was a revered master. Brahms is said to have referred to the piece, one of the most gigantic piano concertos ever written, jokingly as "the long terror."

Single tickets for this concert are $15, $20, $35 and $45 and may be purchased online at http://www.westmichigansymphony.org or by calling 231.726.3231. Student tickets are $5 for this concert but are not available online. College students must present a valid ID when they purchase tickets.

About West Michigan Symphony

As one of the few professional regional orchestras in Michigan, West Michigan Symphony has played a leading role in the region's cultural community for nearly 75 years. Founded as the West Shore Symphony Orchestra, WMS now serves a regional audience with eight pairs of concerts annually, along with dozens of educational and outreach activities for children and adults. WMS oversees operations for the West Michigan Youth Symphony. For more information, visit http://www.westmichigansymphony.org.