The Orchestra at Temple Square will be performing 19 March at Abravanel Hall with a young lady who took Salt Lake City by storm last year when she won the international Gina Bachauer competition at the tender age of 12. Rachel Cheung, a piano prodigy from Hong Kong, will be the featured guest soloist as the orchestra plays some of the most well known and loved pieces in classical music. Igor Gruppman, director of the Orchestra at Temple Square, will be conducting.
The evening's repertoire will include selections from Wagner's Die Meistersinger, Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 20 in D minor and Smetana's beloved Ma Vlast. Ms. Cheung will be the pianist for Mozart's concerto, perhaps his most famous and certainly most frequently performed. The piece was written near the climax of the famous composer’s career and is unique in that it was written in a minor key. The piece was so unique and influential that Beethoven was moved to compose two cadenzas for it.
Wagner's Die Meistersinger has been described as "the longest smile in the German language." A romantic opera, the "Mastersinger" is the tale of a knight and his desire to win the hand of his true love through art and music. Wagner once wrote a friend, "It is my finest work. I weep and I laugh over it."
Written by Smetana after losing his hearing, Ma Vlast ("My Country") is a patriotic tribute to the composer"s home country of Czechoslovakia. In this monumental work, Smetana uses music to describe the majesty and history of his country. The "Moldau" or "River" from Ma Vlast is perhaps one of the most recognizable pieces of musical poetry in the world. This movement, along with "Vysehrad," a musical account of the royal Bohemian court overlooking Prague, will conclude the concert.
Free tickets are available
at the Conference Center ticket office (door 4) or at www.lds.org
(click on "Temple Square Events" on the right side of the home
page). These tickets are limited to those 8 years of age and older.
The doors at Abravanel Hall will open at 6:30 p.m., and the concert
will begin at 7:30 p.m.