Anna Sułkowska-Migoń Conductor
Wu Man Pipa
Nowowiejski Overture to Baltic Legend
Zhao Pipa Concerto No. 2
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5
A brilliantly textured tapestry of music embracing Eastern and Western cultures and styles from the Romantic to the contemporary, this concert is led by the Polish conductor Anna Sułkowska-Migoń, who is helping change the face of orchestral music.
The concert features a pipa concerto by Zhao Jiping, called the “John Williams of China” (The Munro Review) for his distinguished career in scoring for film (Raise the Red Lantern, Farewell My Concubine). A lute-like instrument whose forebears date back more than 2,000 years, the pipa has four strings, 26 frets, and six ledges; its many left- and right-hand fingering techniques make it endlessly versatile and expressive. This piece features the world’s foremost pipa virtuoso, Wu Man, “a one-woman force of nature … a muse for all manner of contemporary music” (Gramophone).
Considered Poland’s “national opera,” Feliks Nowowiejski’s Baltic Legend is set in pre-Christian times in the mythical city of Vineta, which sank beneath the sea when a princess angered the gods. Sułkowska-Migoń conducts the brilliant overture, a work reminiscent of 20th-century Hollywood film scores.
The program concludes with one of Tchaikovsky’s most romantic masterworks, the Fifth Symphony. Intensely exciting, achingly beautiful, this passion-filled work is a wild ride of emotions that takes the listener’s breath away, blotting out all consciousness of anything but this glorious music.