Are you a classical music lover yearning for heart-warming performances this winter? Then look no further. A Winter Season of favourite symphonies will warm classical music lovers’ hearts on Thursday evenings from 9 to 30 June 2022 at the Wits Linder Auditorium.
Expect performances of beloved symphonies and concertos by composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, and Tchaikovsky, and witness exciting solo performances by distinguished soloists from around the world.
Tembe says audiences can expect musical fireworks.
The month-long concert series opens on Thursday, 9 June with the JPO performing under the baton of American conductor Robert Moody, and the music direction of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, featuring dynamic young Venezuelan flautist, Joidy Bianco. The programme includes the Overture to Mozart’s opera Cosi fan Tutte as well as his Concerto for Flute No. 2, plus Pablo de Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen (Gypsy Airs), and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.
“We invite audiences to continue supporting the wonderful, quality work being done by the musicians of the JPO and look forward to being enriched by the power and beauty of classical music,” says Tembe.
Israel-born conductor Daniel Boico, the artistic director of the Free State Symphony Orchestra and former assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, will take to the stage alongside the JPO for a signature performance on Thursday, 16 June 2022.
They will be joined by two soloists, including multi-award-winning local violinist Samson Diamond, who heads up the Odeion String Quartet at the University of the Free State, and Jeanne-Louise Moolman, the violist with the quartet. The programme for the evening features Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5.
A long-standing friend of the JPO, Bernhard Gueller, the principal guest conductor of the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra returns to conduct the JPO on Thursday, 23 June 2022 in a concert featuring 19-year-old soloist Leo Gevisser, an exceptional South African-born piano prodigy who is currently studying at Juilliard School in New York. Gevisser will perform Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 4, and Dvoák’s Symphony No. 6.
The JPO will wrap up its winter season on Thursday, 30 June 2022, under the baton of maestro Gueller, performing alongside soloist Bryan Wallick, an accomplished American virtuoso pianist who lives in South Africa. On the menu for the evening is one of the most dramatic piano concertos in the classical music repertoire, Prokofiev’s Concerto for Piano No. 3. The season closes with Brahms’ Symphony No. 3.
All visitors are required to present a Covid-19 vaccination certificate upon entering the Wits University campus, or a negative Covid test not older than seven days.
Written by Brümilda Swartbooi
01/06/2022