The Firebird
The Firebird
Tuesday February 16, 2010
8:00  PM
Verizon Hall

The Philadelphia Orchestra

Andrey Boreyko - Conductor

Louis Lortie - Piano

Program:

CHOPIN - Piano Concerto No. 2

KANCHELI - "Morning Prayers," from Life without Christmas

STRAVINSKY - Suite from The Firebird (1911 original)

Description:

Music of yearning is the theme for these concerts featuring St. Petersburg-born Andrey Boreyko, chief conductor of the Bern Symphony and, beginning in September 2009, general music director of the Düsseldorf Symphony. The loneliness of a solo pilot at night, as expressed in Barber's haunting World War II-era Night Flight, is counterbalanced with the nostalgic "Morning Prayers" by Georgian composer Giya Kancheli. And the poetry of Chopin's melancholic Second Concerto--featuring the French-Canadian virtuoso Louis Lortie--is pitted against Stravinsky's mysterious Firebird, part of the Orchestra's focus on works written for the Ballets Russes.