THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED.
June 16, 2020 | 7:30PM
Athenaeum Theatre
What’s Interesting
About This Concert
John Macfarlane
Violin
Featured Artist >>>
Joseph Bologne
Featured Composer
2020 marks the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birthday and we’re celebrating by highlighting a piece of his you might not have heard before: The Overture to The Ruins of Athens.
Joseph Bologne Chevalier de Saint-Georges, known as the “Black Mozart,” was a champion fencer, colonel in the army of the French Republic, violinist, conductor and composer. Raised and educated in Paris in the 18th Century, he was the first composer of African descent in the history of Western Art (“Classical”) Music.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is one of the most prominent gay composers in history, although he lived closeted and depressed in Imperial Russia of the 1800s. His Fourth Symphony grapples with the sad fate of Tchaikovsky’s life, and ends with a reminder that “simple but strong joys do exist. Rejoice in others’ rejoicing!”
The Program
Gregory Hughes conductor
John Macfarlane violin
BEETHOVEN: Overture to The Ruins of Athens
SAINT-GEORGES: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. posth., No. 1
TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 4
This concert will last approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes, with intermission.