Events

PROGRAM

Soloist and playing leader:  Isabelle van Keulen , violin

Ralph Vaughan Williams : The Lark Ascending
Jessie Montgomery : Strum
Samuel Barber : Adagio 
Emilie Mayer : Symphony no. 1

The lark has attracted many composers to write exquisitely beautiful and restful music. One of those who has done the very best is the British  Ralph Vaughan Williams . His The Lark Ascending for solo violin and orchestra attracts the listener into a wonderfully beautiful musical landscape where we can hear the lark’s song as it rises towards the sky. The Lark Ascending has been voted by English classical music radio stations as the country’s most beloved piece of all time. The soloist and conductor is the Norrbotten Chamber Orchestra ‘s artistic director Isabelle van Keulen . She is internationally acclaimed for her charismatic charisma and virtuoso violin playing, which she has demonstrated in a series of concerts together with world orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic , the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the London Philharmonic Orchestraand many more.

At this concert she also leads the Norrbotten Chamber Orchestra in Jessie Montgomery‘s wonderfully evocative and swinging Strum , a tribute to American folk music, dance and movement. The title Strum refers to when you play the guitar, or as here string instruments, by plucking or hitting the strings with your fingers. Jessie Montgomery is one of the world’s most acclaimed composers at the moment. She was raised on Manhattan’s Lower East Side where her father ran a music studio. Constantly surrounded by music from different genres, her music is inspired by jazz, African-American spirituals, hip hop and rock, while rooted in the classical tradition, but with a distinct American flavor.

American musical beauty is also experienced in Samuel Barber ‘s wonderful Adagio , his most famous and beloved piece. The music was played at Franklin D. Roosevelt ‘s funeral and also at the funerals of John F. Kennedy and Albert Einstein . Barber did not intend this to be mournful music at all, but rather a meditative and singable adagio, which it is.

A nice contrast at this concert is Emilie Mayer ‘s first symphony. She was already described during her lifetime as a female Beethoven and was one of the most significant symphonists in the period between Schumann and Brahms . As we hear in this symphony, her effective music has both dramatic nerve, melodic imagination and a fantastic richness of sound.