Violin prodigy takes up the bow for BRSO’s ‘Perspectives’
Next Thursday, Jan. 28, the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra will deliver its third installment in the Masterworks Series with “Perspectives: Mendelssohn, Bruch and Hayden,” a series of musical performances written by composers whose lifetimes range from the early Romantic period to the modern day. In a range of styles that explore the composers’ musical interpretations of people and places, 18-year-old violin prodigy Adé Williams will join performances of Paul Hayden’s “Clara,” Max Bruch’s “Scottish Fantasy in E-flat major, Op. 46,” and Felix Mendelssohn’s “Symphony No. 4 in A major ‘Italian,’ Op. 90.” A native of Chicago, Williams won her first national concerto competition at age eight.
Hayden is an LSU graduate whose “Clara” will premier at the 7:30 p.m. River Center event. Inspired by 19th-century pianist and composer Clara Schumann, the wife of famed composer Robert Schumann, Hayden’s piece reimagines excerpts from Clara’s own chord progressions and compositions to place her ideas in a modern context.
Bruch, who borrowed much from fellow German Mendolssohn, is credited with penning one of the most popular concertos of any violinist’s repertoire, “Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26,” but his “Scottish Fantasy” also makes use of the work of another famous artist—the poet Robert Burns’ tune from “Scots Wha Hae,” a song that was for centuries sung as a national anthem of Scotland.
Mendelssohn’s name now rings among the most popular composers of the Romantic era, famous for his dainty musical effects and a penchant for being just as inspired by nature as by other musicians like Johann Sebastian Bach. His Symphony No. 4 gets its color from his tour of Italy from 1829-1831, an experience he once called “the supreme joy in life.”
To purchase tickets, call 225-383-0500 or visit brso.org.