Contact:Gretchen Miller Basso
Public Relations Director
The Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra
Phone: 407/896-6700 x 223
Fax: 407/896-5512
gmiller@orlandophil.org
www.orlandophil.org
(Orlando, FL – February 25, 2009) – The Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra performs a program of the music of Johannes Brahms on Saturday, March 21, 2009, 8:00 PM at the Bob Carr Performing Arts Centre, 401 W. Livingston Street, Orlando. The concert, titled Classic Brahms, is sponsored by Siemens, Energy, Inc. Artist Sponsors are Ovation!, and The Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation.
Providing insight to the composer in his program notes, David Glerum writes, “Although the German composer Johannes Brahms wrote music imbued with intense passion, expressivity, and the fervor associated with late nineteenth century Romanticism, he often felt like a man who lived in an era after his own time. Not only did Brahms have a penchant for the forms and styles of the Classical and Baroque traditions, he actually felt rooted in them. When you think “Brahms,” what often comes to mind is music that goes so far as to epitomize the Romantic spirit. But never does Brahms drift afar from the discipline and structure of a Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven.”
In Classic Brahms, Maestro Christopher Wilkins leads the Philharmonic in some of Brahms’ most compelling works: Tragic Overture, Symphony No. 4 and his Violin Concerto, featuring Concertmaster Tamas Kocsis as soloist.
Glerum elaborates on the work, “Brahms’ Violin Concerto has earned the exalted place alongside that of the magnificent Beethoven as one of the two greatest violin concertos ever written. Although it was met with reservations from a public expecting more flash than musical substance, over the years the concerto has gained immense popularity. It is a concerto irresistible for the sunny warmth of its lyricism, the caressing and poignant character of its melodies, and for the symphonic sweep of its masterfully interwoven solo and orchestral parts.”
Hungarian-born Tamas Kocsis began his violin studies at the age of five. He received his training at the Liszt Academy with Denes Kovacs before coming over to the United States in 1989, where he studied on a full scholarship with Josef Gingold at Indiana University. He later attended The Juilliard School, where he worked with Dorothy DeLay. Tamas was also invited to participate in the 1994 and 1995 Aspen Music Festival. In 1994, Tamas won the European Council’s Award and the Artists’ International Auditions in NYC prior to his appointment as Concertmaster of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in 1995. During his three years in Texas, he was on the faculty at the School of Music at Texas Christian University. In 1998, he became Concertmaster of the Savannah Symphony Orchestra, where he remained until the orchestra unfortunately folded in 2005. Tamas also spent the summers of 1996-2000 as Concertmaster of the Breckenridge Music Institute at the Breckenridge Music Festival; since 2001, he has been the Concertmaster of the Crested Butte Music Festival in Colorado. He has made recordings of the complete violin sonatas and piano quartets of Brahms under the EPR label. Sir Kocsis was recently honored with a Knighthood in Budapest. He is now a member of the Ancient Order of Knights, “The Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem.” He was accepted at the highest possible rank of Commander.
Tickets to Classic Brahms are $13, $26, $36, $48 and $65, and can be purchased by phone at 407-770-0071 or on line at www.OrlandoPhil.org.
