This preview provided by the North Carolina Symphony.
The North Carolina Symphony and Music Director Grant Llewellyn will perform the final concerts of the 2015-2016 Classical season in Raleigh with a program featuring Mahler’s 7th Symphony. The performances will be in Meymandi Concert Hall in the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, May 13 at 8 p.m. and Saturday, May 14 at 8 p.m.
These performances are part of the “Grant Conducts Mahler” cycle which began in 2004 with the first concerts of Llewellyn’s first season as Music Director.
Maestro Llewellyn says of conducting this work, “Mahler’s 7th Symphony has been on my bucket list ever since a conducting class at the Royal College of Music at which my Professor, Norman Del Mar, announced that it is Mahler’s most problematic work (a red flag to an aspiring conductor). Sure enough I have struggled with it ever since and now feel ready to engage in combat. The 80 or so minutes are packed full of Mahler’s hallmark themes and symphonic characteristics, plus a few truly original ideas and colors – a tenor tuba such as you’ll never hear anywhere else, and guitar and mandolin to give a lighter touch.”
Special events, sponsors and ticket information
Pre-concert events include talks by Associate Conductor David Glover, Friday and Saturday evenings at 7 p.m.
Tickets to the performances range from $18 to $56. Student tickets are $10. For more information, visit the North Carolina Symphony’s website at www.ncsymphony.org, or call 919.733.2750 or toll free 877.627.6724.
Meymandi Concert Hall is located in the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, 2 E. South St., in Raleigh.
About the North Carolina Symphony
Founded in 1932, the North Carolina Symphony gives more than 200 performances annually to adults and school children in more than 50 North Carolina counties. An entity of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, the orchestra employs 66 professional musicians, under the artistic leadership of Music Director and Conductor Grant Llewellyn, Resident Conductor William Henry Curry, and Associate Conductor David Glover.
Based in downtown Raleigh’s spectacular Meymandi Concert Hall at the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts and an outdoor summer venue at Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, N.C., the Symphony performs about 60 concerts annually in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Cary metropolitan area. It holds regular concert series in Fayetteville, New Bern, Southern Pines and Wilmington – as well as individual concerts in many other North Carolina communities throughout the year – and conducts one of the most extensive education programs of any U.S. orchestra.
