Festival Chamber Orchestra

Tchaikovsky’s theme and variations in a Rococo style is one of the most performed cello concertos in the repertoire. The composer himself defined “Rococo” as “a carefree feeling of well-being.” It’s a warm-hearted, gracious, and charming work, featuring Amos Yang, the Festival’s own Principal Cello, as soloist. Mozart fans will love Schubert’s fifth symphony, an uplifting piece full of jaunty and light melodies, any one of which you’re likely to find yourself humming on the way home.

In 1942, the BBC commissioned Benjamin Britten to put six English poems to music as a portrayal of life in England. The authors included Tennyson, Blake, and Keats. Tenor Nicholas Phan and Principal Horn William VerMeulen will converse through music in Britten’s resulting Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings. In Mother Goose., Maurice Ravel set five fairy tales to music as a gift to two children of his good friends for them to play on the piano. He later turned it into a complete ballet score, which the Festival Orchestra will perform in this concert.

For opening night, “brilliant pianist” Orli Shaham (The New York Times) returns to Sun Valley to perform Ravel’s beautiful and jazz-influenced Piano Concerto in G Major. Continuing the jazzy theme, the program also includes Delights & Dances, a rhythmic and soulful composition by Academy Award-nominated American composer Michael Abels. The Season opens with The Star-Spangled Banner, of course, followed by Rossini’s Overture to The Barber of Seville.

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 stands out for its upbeat enthusiasm, a quality it offers in abundance despite the composer’s advancing deafness when he wrote it. Brimming with extremes and surprises, the piece exhibits an exuberance and cheerfulness not heard again until—perhaps—his Ode to Joy in the ninth symphony. The concert opens with Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, a piece he wrote for his wife, Cosima. Wagner hired a small group of musicians to play the piece in the front hallway of his house to awaken her on her birthday morning.