Special PRSO concert on 29 October promises special experience
The PRSO has invited two extraordinary artists to collaborate, the internationally renowned conductor Alexander Liebreich and the first class cellist Alban Gerhardt. In an attractive programme of pieces by Pavel Haas, Shostakovich and Brahms, you will are sure to appreciate the level of artistry that ensures they repeatedly return to the world’s most famous venues.
The attractive programme will get underway with Study for Strings, which Pavel Haas –probably Leoš Janáček’s most famous pupil – composed in Terezín in 1943. (Karel Ančerl, a future principal conductor of the Czech Philharmonic, also performed it there.)
Recently appointed artistic director of the Richard Strauss Festival in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Alexander Liebreich (born 1968) has since 2012 been artistic director and principal conductor of the Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra in Katowice. (That’s right, they’re the lucky people who in 2014 got a wonderful new home with phenomenal acoustics designed by the Japanese specialist Yusuhisa Toyota). Mr. Liebreich was also artistic director and principal conductor of the Munich Chamber Orchestra for 10 years and for three years headed the International Music Festival in Tongyeong, South Korea. He also occasionally produces operas “on the side”, as well as teaching at his alma mater in Munich.
We will enjoy Alban Gerhardt’s cello virtuosity on Concerto no. 1 in E-flat major by Shostakovich, which was written for the legendary Mstislav Rostropovich and became one of the pillars of the cello literature. The special concert at the Rudolfinum’s Dvořák Hall will reach a climax with Brahms’ Fourth Symphony, a classic of German Romanticism.
The career of cellist Alban Gerhardt (born 1969) got off to a dream start over a quarter of a century ago when he made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic and Semyon Bychkov. He has been a major star in the classical firmament ever since.
Czech-German Spring
The concert will take place as part of the “Echo of Czech-German Cultural Spring” and is being organised in cooperation with the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Prague and the city’s Goethe Institute. Tickets are already on sale and can be acquired HERE.
We can also now reveal that you will encounter Alexander Liebreich again as part of the PRSO’s regular series of concerts for season-ticket holders.
In March 2018 he will perform an original programme of pieces by Alexander Zemlinsky and Leoš Janáček, linked dramaturgically to the momentous interwar period of the New German Theatre in Prague, alongside works by Richard Strauss and György Ligeti.
But right now you can look forward to the special concert on 29 October 2017. Radio listeners can also enjoy this musical experience, via a live broadcast on Czech Radio’s Vltava station.
