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Pianist Pervez Mody will perform Liszt’s Piano Concerto No.1 with the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra on April 5 and 6. For more information visit www.sasomusic.org.
TUCSON, AZ – The Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra program on April 5 and 6 is sure to be a crowd pleaser – with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol, Liszt’s Piano Concerto No.1 and Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet.
This spirited and ambitious program will be conducted by SASO Music Director Linus Lerner and features piano virtuoso Pervez Mody.
Born in Mumbai, India, Mody began playing piano at the age of four. He won a scholarship to study at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, then another for advanced study at Karlsruhe University of Music in Germany. He’s known not only for his technical perfection but also his passionate rendering of a wide range of composers.
Pervez Mody performs in Europe, Asia, the United States and South America and has made several CD recordings. One news report in his native India said that Mody “overwhelmed the music-loving populace of Calcutta with Scriabin and Chopin.”
Liszt himself premiered his first piano concerto under the baton of Hector Berlioz. The work evolved for more than two decades, with early thematic notes penned by the composer at age 19. Even after the premiere, Liszt continued to fine tune the concerto known for its lyricism, invention, wit and poetry.
The SASO concert also features teen piano phenom Rebecca Shiao – winner of the 2014 Dorothy Vanek Youth Concerto Competition. She will perform the first movement of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. She also won a cash prize of $1,000 in the fifth annual competition sponsored by SASO. Shiao previously won the Tucson Symphony Orchestra’s 26th annual Young Artists Competition. She’s a senior at Catalina Foothills High School and studies piano with Susan Chu.
The program opens with Rimsky-Korsakov’s lively and richly orchestrated Capriccio Espagnol. Inspired by Spanish folk dances and gypsy songs, the five-section work features cadenzas for various soloists throughout the orchestra.
The program concludes with Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet. John Mangum of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra once wrote that “Shakespeare’s tragedy and Tchaikovsky’s tortured personal life collided to produce the first true expression of his genius as a composer – a tautly constructed masterpiece that boils Shakespeare’s narrative down to its essentials in 20 minutes of music that is, by turns, thunderingly dramatic and achingly beautiful.”
The concerts will be presented Saturday, April 5 at 7:30 p.m. at the DesertView Performing Arts Center, 39900 S. Clubhouse Drive in SaddleBrooke and again on Sunday, April 6 at 3 p.m. at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, 7575 N. Paseo del Norte in northwest Tucson.
Tickets to the SaddleBrooke concert are $21 in advance or $23 at the door. Call 825-2818 or order online at http://tickets/saddlebrooketwo.com.
Tickets to the St. Andrews concert are $20 can be ordered by phone at 308-6226 or online at www.sasomusic.org. Tickets also can be purchased at the door. Complimentary tickets are available at the St. Andrews performance for students age 17 or younger.
For more information, visit www.sasomusic.org or call 308-6226.
John Huntington is a local business owner in Oracle. He is a chiropractor with many years in the community. He writes a health related article in Pinal Nugget.
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