Spring Strings

Public Health Precautions:  For this concert, masks are required while in the theater.   Proof of full vaccination is also required for entry (or documented negative PCR test within 72 hours of the start of the event, or a negative antigen test taken within 48 hours of the start of the event). Thank you for your cooperation.

Haydn | Symphony No. 75 in D Major
Rodrigo | Concierto de Aranjuez
Walker | Lyric for Strings
Bizet | Symphony No. 1 in C Major

Appropriately, the ECSO’s 75th anniversary season includes Franz Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 75, completed in 1781. The composer of an astounding 107 symphonies, “Papa” Haydn is considered the father of the four-movement form, expanded by his sometime pupil Ludwig van Beethoven, whose nine symphonies are the heart of the repertoire.

Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo’s 1939 work for classical guitar and orchestra, Concierto de Aranjuez, was inspired by the centuries-old gardens at a royal palace south of Madrid. This performance, postponed from March of 2020, marks the ECSO debut of soloist Jason Vieaux, co-founder of the guitar department at Philadelphia’s prestigious Curtis Institute of Music and winner of the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo.

George Walker, composer of Lyrics for Strings, which follows, was the first African American graduate of the Curtis Institute and the first African American to appear with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Expanded from a piece composed at Curtis, Lyrics for Strings is dedicated to Walker’s formerly enslaved grandmother.

After intermission, a rare treat: Georges Bizet’s Symphony No. 1, written when the composer of Carmen was a 17-year-old student of Charles Gounod at the Paris Conservatory.