Slovak Philharmonic celebrates start of season

THE SLOVAK Philharmonic (SF) opens the 2014/2015 season with a concert commemorating the 65th anniversary of its founding, repeating the programme almost identically. On October 23 and 24, playing the composition Dolu Váhom / Down the Váh River of Slovak Alexander Moyzes and Symphony No 8 G Major by Czech Antonín Dvořák, while also adding a piece that is new compared to the historical concert: Concert for Violin and Orchestra by Dezider Kardoš.

Chief conductor Emmanuel VillaumeChief conductor Emmanuel Villaume (Source: Courtesy of SF)

THE SLOVAK Philharmonic (SF) opens the 2014/2015 season with a concert commemorating the 65th anniversary of its founding, repeating the programme almost identically. On October 23 and 24, playing the composition Dolu Váhom / Down the Váh River of Slovak Alexander Moyzes and Symphony No 8 G Major by Czech Antonín Dvořák, while also adding a piece that is new compared to the historical concert: Concert for Violin and Orchestra by Dezider Kardoš.

The 66th concert season of SF will have the same chief conductor, Frenchman Emmanuel Villaume (who is also the head of the orchestra in the Dallas opera), and guest conductors Czech Leoš Svárovský (also active at the Aichi Central Symphony Orchestra Nagoya) and Slovak Rastislav Štúr.

Within 13 cycles, the SF offers numerous concerts offering Slovak musical bodies, top soloists as well as top foreign guests: pianist Matej Aren-dárik, South Korean pianist Soo Jung Ann, Chinese violinist Tianwa Yang, Russian pia-nist Andrey Yaroshinsky, Rus-sian-Israeli pianist Boris Giltburg, operatic signers Eva Hornyáková, Adriana Kohút-ková, Martin Malachovský, Terézia Kružliaková, Tomáš Černý, Peter Mikuláš, Argentinean mezzo-soprano Bernadeta Fink, Russian soprano marina Shaguch, clarinettist Jozef Luptáčik, violinist Bá-lint Kovács, cellist Jerome Pernoo, hornist Stefan Dohr, Czech violinist Ivan Ženatý, and organists: Austrian Wolf-gang Capek, Hungarian János Palúr, Slovak Monika Melcová and French Thierry Escaich.

Guest conductors will be renowned personalities like Alexander Rahbari, German- Russian Thomas Sanderling, Russian Dmitry Sitkovetsky, and US-Armenian George Pehlivanian.

The works of Slovak composers will be plentiful (Moy- zes, Kardoš – whose centenary is celebrated this year, Jozef Malovec, Alexander Albrecht, Egon Krák, Ladislav Kupkovič, Peter Martinček, Eugen Su-choň, Vladimír Godár and Pe-ter Zagar), but the compositions of respected foreign authors will also be played: from Brahms, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Bach, Dvořák (St Ludmila ora-tory), Smetana, Rachmaninov, through Anton Bruckner (his Te Deum will be premie-red in this version), the full version of Beethoven’s Eg-mont (also premiered), to Wilibald Gluck and his Don Juan, contemporary Krzystof Penderecki’s Adaggietto from Paradise Lost, Gustav Mah- ler’s Symphony No 9. Russian composer Alfred Schnittke is less played in the SF’s Reduta venue, but in June 2015, his music to the film adaptation of Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita (directed by Yuri Kara) will be performed.

Other traditional cycles include the Early Music (SH), Slovak Chamber Orchestra Bohdan Warchal (SKO), Music and Word (HS), Musical Mosaic (HM), church concerts (S), Musical Academy (HA), organ concerts (O), and extraordinary concerts (M) which will offer Russian opera soloists on October 31, the final concert of the New Slovak Music festival on November 14, Christmas carols on December 21 and 22, New Year’s Eve / Silvester concert, Slovak Philharmonic Choir a cappella concert on February 20, 2015, Dvořák’s Stabat mater on April 1, Film Music on April 22 and a benefit concert to renew the Albrecht House on May 14. The Popular Cycle (C) will offer jazz on October 30, film music on April 23 and “Opera Female Sinners” on June 18.

Everyone can choose something from this huge and varied offer, and the tickets – including those for the whole season – can be bought either in the Reduta building in E. Suchoňa Square 1, or online via www.navstevnik.sk and www.filharmonia.sk.

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