Carlos Kalmar Conducts Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7, “Leningrad”

This preview has been provided by the North Carolina Symphony.

Conductor Carlos Kalmar will lead the North Carolina Symphony in a 2012-2013 classical season orchestra highlight of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7, “Leningrad.”  The performances take place on Friday, Nov. 16, and Saturday, Nov. 17, at 8:00 p.m. in downtown Raleigh’s Meymandi Concert Hall at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts, and on Sunday, Nov. 18, at 8:00 p.m. in Memorial Hall on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  The program in Raleigh and Chapel Hill also includes Mozart’s Symphony No. 25, “Little G minor.” 

During a world at war in a city under siege, Shostakovich lifted a nation and the world through music during World War II.  Composers, like all other Soviet citizens, had to navigate through the shifting and arbitrary rules of the state in order to survive.  The weekend concerts are the culmination of a larger exploration of music and politics in Stalin’s Russia, that have ranged from lectures to chamber music performances, to a podcast interview between host David Hartman and conductor Carlos Kalmar, which will be posted at www.ncsymphony.org on Friday, Nov. 16.

Conductor Kalmar brings to the podium a wide breadth of musical expertise. He recently assumed the position of Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the RTVE Symphony Orchestra & Chorus in Madrid. He enters his ninth year as Music Director of the Oregon Symphony Orchestra where he has dramatically raised the musical standard, as witnessed by New York audiences in May 2011 when the orchestra made their highly acclaimed Carnegie Hall debut. He also continues as Artistic Director of Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival.

In addition to stellar performances, North Carolina Symphony concertgoers can enjoy pre-concert talks and “Meet the Artists,” which feature interactive conversations with guest artists and select orchestra members, at many Symphony events. For the performance of “Leningrad” on Nov. 16-17, Dr. Tom Koch, of the N.C. State University Music Department, will host a pre-concert talk onstage at Meymandi Concert Hall at 7 p.m., to be followed immediately by a performance of excerpts from Shostakovich’s Third String Quartet by members of the North Carolina Symphony.  There will be “Ask A Musician” opportunities in the lobbies at intermission.  For the Chapel Hill performance, Dr. Letitia Glozer, of the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Music, will give a pre-concert talk, featuring a performance of excerpts from Shostakovich’s Third String Quartet by members of the North Carolina Symphony in Gerrard Hall at 7 p.m.

Tickets to the Raleigh Classical Series performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7, “Leningrad,” on Friday, Nov. 16, and Saturday, Nov. 17, and the Chapel Hill performance on Sunday, Nov. 18, range from $18 to $50.  Student tickets are $10 in both locations.
   
To purchase tickets, visit the North Carolina Symphony website at www.ncsymphony.org or call the Symphony Box Office at 919.733.2750 or toll free 877.627.6724.

About the North Carolina Symphony

Founded in 1932 and subsequently made an entity of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, the North Carolina Symphony employs 67 professional musicians under the artistic leadership of Music Director and Conductor Grant Llewellyn and Resident Conductor William Henry Curry. Every year, this orchestra performs over 175 concerts in more than 50 North Carolina counties, with some 60 of those concerts offered in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill metropolitan area.

The Symphony boasts two spectacular home venues: Meymandi Concert Hall at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Raleigh and Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, N.C. The Symphony also travels 12,000 miles each year to present concert series in Fayetteville, New Bern, Southern Pines and Wilmington; individual concerts in communities across the state; and one of the most extensive education programs of any U.S. orchestra.

Program Listing:
North Carolina Symphony
Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7, “Leningrad.”
Carlos Kalmar, Conductor
November 16-18

Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K.183
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Symphony No. 7 in C Major, Op. 60, “Leningrad”
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)