Arts writer
THE upcoming Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra’s (CPO) winter season in June honours South Africa’s eminent composer Peter Klatzow on his 70th birthday. A concert on June 24 will feature several of Klatzow’s works, including his Double Concerto for Flute, Marimba and String s, and the Brahms / Klatzow Symphony no 5, Klatzow’s arrangement of the Brahms Quintet for Strings.
The CPO welcomes back two popular conductors in this season, which runs from June 4 to 25 at The Cape Town City Hall. Sibelius Conducting Competition winner Yasuo Shinozaki and American maestro Victor Yampolsky will each direct two concerts, with several outstanding soloists making a return to the CPO stage.
The season opens on June 4 with a performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no 1 in C with the American pianist Awadagin Pratt. Other works on the programme are the world premiere of Long Walk, a SAMRO commission of Cape Town composer Laura Stevens, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony no 4 in F minor.
The second concert, on June 11, features the South African soloists Ben Schoeman (piano) and Anzél Gerber in Grové Bushman Prayers for Piano, Cello, Narrator and Orchestra. Schoeman will also play Saint-Saëns Africa for Piano and Orchestra, and Ms Gerber will play Tchaikovsky Pezzo Capriccioso. The orchestra will play the Hussite Overture by Dvorák and the Sibelius Symphony no 1 in E minor.
On June 18, Yampolsky takes up the baton with Olivier Charlier as the soloist in Mozart’s Strasbourg Violin Concerto, no 3 in G, K 216. Singers Elizabeth Frandsen (mezzo) and Esewu Nobela (tenor) will be joined by the New Apostolic Church Choir and orchestra in the Symphony No.1 in E by Scriabin.
The concert will begin with the Overture, A Life for the Tsar, by Glinka.
The season ends with the Klatzow concert, which also features Liesl Stoltz (flute) and Frank Mallows (marimba) in his Double Concerto, and The Healing Melody, a work commissioned by the Doctors’ Orchestra.
l Subscription renewal opens on April 20 at Computicket 0861 915 8000 and Artscape Dial-A-Seat 421 7695 for two weeks. New subscriptions and single seats go on sale on May 18.
All subscriptions attract a 20 per cent discount, with members of Friends of Orchestral Music attracting a further 10 per cent. One renewing subscriber and one new subscriber can each win a pair of tickets to the Cape Town Concert Series recital with pianists Natalia Lavrova and Vassily Primakov on October 24. www.cpo.org.za