2012-13 Concert Season

"In the midst of life, Death dares to weep in our midst" - Rilke

Maestro Jonathan Pasternack leads the St. PCP in powerful a journey featuring the most unusual of Shostakovich's symphonies, a work dedicated to Benjamin Britten (who celebrates his 100th centenary in 2013 and who gave the UK premiere in 1970.) The work was premiered in Leningrad in 1969. This stark and intense work will be preceeded by the hauntingly beautiful Hymn by Charles Ives and Haydn’s "Trauer" (Mourning) Symphony, the slow movement of which Haydn asked to be played at his funeral.

PROGRAM
Charles Ives: Hymn
Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 44 in E Minor, "Trauer"
Dimitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 14
Elena Ushakova, soprano
Vitaly Yankovsky, bass

Artistic Director Jeffery Meyer leads the St. PCP in its sixth appearance at the International Sound Ways festival led by Alexander Radvilovich. The program will feature no less than three world premieres as well as two classics from living icons from the United States and Russia: John Adams and Sergei Slonimsky. The St. PCP has had a long and fruitful relationship with Slonimsky and this performance of the Concerto Buffo is in honor of his 80th birthday in 2012.

Ho Chung Yeh makes his debut with the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic in a brilliant program of works that draw their inspiration from the past, bringing those inspirations into vibrant new contexts. Bach serves as the inspiration for two of the works on the program. Pärt found a way out of an artistic crisis in the music of Bach, and the American composer Theofanidis takes the Bach Brandenburg No. 3 as a point of departure. Stravinsky finds inspiration from the music of Pergolesi and others from the 18th century. Kodaly, like Pärt, Stravinsky and Theofandis finds his musical inspiration from the past, but closer to home; that of the virtuoso Gyspy folk music of his native Hungary. A concert of virtuosity, intellect and contemplation not to be missed.

PROGRAM
Arvo Pärt: Wenn Bach Bienen gezüchtet hätte…
  (If Bach Had Raised Bees...) (1976/2001)
Igor Stravinsky: Pulcinella: Suite
J.S. Bach: Air on a G String
  (from the Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068)
Christopher Theofanidis: Muse inspired by Bach's Brandenburg No. 3 (2007)
Zoltán Kodály: Dances of Galanta (Galántai táncok)

The 2013 International Masterclass in Orchestral Conducting will be the fifth international workshop run by the St. PCP for talented young conductors who will come from all over the world to develop their craft of conducting under the tutelage one of St. Petersburg's most important teachers. The most talented participants in the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic's Conductor's Masterclass will be chosen to conduct on the final concert of the six-day intensive program.

PROGRAM
Stravinsky: Apollon Musagète
Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major (Op. 55) "Eroica"