By Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk, Grand Rapids Symphony
Music lovers and concert goers often ask classical musicians to name their favorite composer. Typically, the answer leads to the music of whomever they’re currently rehearsing or performing. Or to composers who wrote often or wrote well for their chosen instrument.
For conductors whose job it is to see the big picture, the answer sometimes is surprising.
“Often people ask me who my favorite composer is. I don’t know how to answer that,” said Grand Rapids Symphony Music Director Marcelo Lehninger. “But if I were going to a desert island, and I had to choose one composer, I probably would pick Chopin.”
That might come as a surprise because, while figures such as Maurice Ravel and Richard Strauss were great composers as well as great orchestrators, Frédéric Chopin was a great composer whose skills at arranging for orchestra were, at best, only adequate.
Yet the Polish-born musician, one of the greatest pianists of all time, revolutionized composition and piano performance to a degree that no one else has ever done.
“He completely changed the way you play the instrument,” said Lehninger, a pianist. “No one else, not even Paganini, did that for his instrument, the violin.”
Grand Rapids Symphony celebrates the music of Chopin with guest pianist Rafał Blechacz at 8 pm Friday and Saturday, April 27-28, in DeVos Performance Hall. The program titled Chopin & Dvořák is part of the 2018 Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, centered in Kalamazoo.
Joining the Grand Rapids Symphony for Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 is Blechacz, the 2014 Gilmore Artist of the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival. Guest artist sponsor is the Edith I. Blodgett Guest Artist Fund.
The concert is in partnership with the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival. Concert Sponsor is Merrill Lynch.
The ninth concerts of the 2017-18 Richard and Helen DeVos Classical series also include Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8 in G Major. It opens with Canto, a brief work by contemporary American composer Adam Schoenberg.
Joining the Grand Rapids Symphony for Chopin’s Piano Concerto in E minor is Polish pianist Rafał Blechacz, the 2014 Gilmore Artist of the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival. The concert is in partnership with the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival. Guest artist sponsor is the Edith I. Blodgett Guest Artist Fund.
Not only is Blechacz a fellow Pole, he was the winner of the 15th International Chopin Competition in 2005, becoming the first Polish pianist to win the competition since Krystian Zimerman in 1975.
And not only did Blechacz win the top prize, he won all four of the additional prizes for best performance of a polonaise, a mazurka, a sonata, and a concerto with orchestra. No other pianist in the 91-year history of the event, held once every five years in Warsaw, has ever captured every award in the competition.
Lehninger, who made his Grand Rapids Symphony debut in February 2015 conducting Dvorak’s popular Symphony No. 9 “From the New World,” will lead the Grand Rapids Symphony in Antonin Dvorak’s sunny Symphony No. 8
The concerts open with Adam Schoenberg’s Canto, which in Italian means “I sing.” One of the most frequently-heard composers in today’s concert halls, Schoenberg composed the brief work as a lullaby in honor his son, Luca, who was born in 2013.
- Inside the Music, a free, pre-concert, multi-media presentation sponsored by BDO USA, will be held before each performance at 7 p.m. in the DeVos Place Recital Hall.
- The complete Chopin & Dvorak program will be rebroadcast on Sunday, May 28, 2018, at 1 p.m. on Blue Lake Public Radio 88.9 FM or 90.3 FM.
Tickets
Tickets start at $18 and are available at the GRS box office, weekdays 9 am-5 pm, at 300 Ottawa Ave. NW, Suite 100, (located across from the Calder Plaza), or by calling 616.454.9451 x 4. (Phone orders will be charged a $2 per ticket service fee, with a $12 maximum.)
Tickets are available at the DeVos Place ticket office, weekdays 10 am-6 pm or on the day of the concert beginning two hours prior to the performance. Tickets also may be purchased online at GRSymphony.org.
Full-time students of any age are able to purchase tickets for only $5 on the night of the concert by enrolling in the GRS Student Tickets program, sponsored by Comerica and Calvin College. This is a MySymphony360 eligible concert.
