Axelrod, Lamsma to stage Alpine Symphony
John Axelrod / Courtesy of SPO
By Yun Suh-young
Noted conductor John Axelrod and prodigy turned top violinist Simone Lamsma will be performing together at the LG Arts Center in Gangnam, southern Seoul, Thursday.
"Eine Alpensinfonie" (Alpine Symphony) by Richard Strauss is the main repertoire of the concert while the more popular Gioacchino Rossini's "William Tell Overture" and Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 4 are also on the list.
The second half of the concert will be entirely dedicated to Richard Strauss' Alpine Symphony which consists of 22 pieces.
Strauss wrote the Alpine Symphony based on his youth experience of living in Garmisch in the Alps. Based on delicate expression, Strauss maximizes the musical impact of orchestral instruments to portray a "grandiose musical fresco" depicting the Alps. Each of the 22 pieces of music represent a scene from the Alps, whether it is the beginning of the climb at dawn, encountering a tornado, reaching the peak and climbing down. The symphony is built as one song telling a story from beginning to end. The piece is known for its vast composition which requires each of the orchestra members to be extremely skilled. A total of 110 musicians will perform the music including 13 horns, a harpist and organist. Rare instruments such as tuba and wind machine will appear as well to best depict nature's sound.
Axelrod boasts of having a diverse repertoire as well as innovative programming skills and a charismatic performance style. He is currently the Artistic and Musical Director of the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla (ROSS) since 2014, and simultaneously serves as Principal Conductor of Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano “Giuseppe” Verdi (LaVerdi) until 2017. Previously he had served as Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and Theater and as Music Director of the l'Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire.
Thursday's performance is the conductor's debut with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra which is among the several orchestras which he will be performing with in the upcoming seasons, including Filarmonica della Scala, RAI Symphony Orchestra of Turin, the WDR Funkhausorchester in Koeln, the OSI in Lugano, and the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.
Axelrod has conducted over 160 orchestras around the world since 2001 including Berlin's RSB, NDR Symphony Hamburg, Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, the Grazer Philharmoniker, the Kyoto and NHK Symphony Orchestras and Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra and the National Symphony. He has also conducted 30 operas and 50 world premieres.
Axelrod graduated from Harvard and was trained personally by Leonard Bernstein in 1982. At the St. Petersburg Conservatory, in 1996, he studied with Ilya Musin.
Simone Lamsma / Courtesy of SPO
Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma, who will be showcasing Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 4, began playing violin at the age of five and was the youngest to graduate from London's Royal College of Music at the age of 19. She has won numerous awards since debuting at 14 with North Netherlands Symphony Orchestra.
In 2011, she performed with Seoul Philharmonic on Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1 and received high appraise.
She has a vast repertoire of playing over 60 violin concertos and has performed with Rotterdam Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Radio France Philharmonic and Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra to name a few.
Mozart has composed eight violin concertos and of them, numbers 1 to 5 were composed all in Salzburg in Austria during eight months in 1775 when he was 19 years old. The concerto no. 4 is known to be colorful and concise.
Ticket prices range from 10,000 to 70,000. For more information, call 1588-1210.