Outstanding music by some of the best in the business is featured in a special Mother’s Day concert by the New Westminster Symphony Orchestra.
The orchestra will be on stage at the Massey Theatre at 2 p.m. on Sunday, May 8.
Music director and conductor Jin “Jack” Zhang has chosen a program including George Gershwin’s classic Rhapsody in Blue – a masterpiece that opens with the famous wailing glissando on the clarinet, notes local arts promoter Tony Antonias.
Rhapsody in Blue will feature piano soloist Matthew Ming Li, a Vancouver-raised performer who has garnered acclaim for combining intellectual interpretations with “explosive virtuosity,” Antonias notes.
“Even though Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue is not an easy work to pull off, both orchestra and soloist are in very capable hands with Maestro Zhang,” Anthonias says.
The Mother’s Day concert also includes the overture to Otto Nicolai’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, based on Shakespeare’s play; Robert Schumann’s Introduction and Allegro for piano and orchestra, also with Li, as well as a symphony by Alexander Borodin.
Borodin wrote only two symphonies, and Zhang has chosen the second – which represents his first fully mature work and demonstrates his characteristic “rhythmic drive, grandeur, nostalgia and exuberance,” as Antonias puts it.
“This is a Mother’s Day concert of exceptional quality,” says Antonias, “So treat mom to an afternoon she’ll talk about long after the music is over. And don’t forget Dad – bring him too!”
Admission is by donation. The Massey Theatre is at 735 Eighth Ave.
