SOSL Concert premieres
Renowned lady conductor Keiko Kobayashi will take the baton once
again, at SOSL's much anticipated annual Premieres concert this year
too, on October 9, 2009, at the Ladies College Hall at 7.30 pm.
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Keiko Kobayashi |
Atsushi Kimura |
Tokyo-born Keiko Kobayashi, needs no introduction to Colombo
audiences who heard her compelling conducting of Beethoven 5th Symphony
and Mozart's Flute & Harp Concerto at last year's Premieres concert. A
pupil of Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Kenichiro Kobayashi, Yuji Yuasa, Douglas
Bostock and the legendary Seiji Ozawa, her most recent achievement was
the First Prize at the Boswil International Conducting Masterclass in
Switzerland. She conducted the Aargau Symphony Orchestra earlier this
year. Since her debut, she has conducted the Tokyo Philharmonic
Orchestra (TPO), the Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra, the Nagoya
Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra (TKWO) and the Siena
Wind Orchestra and in 2006, she was repetiteur and assistant conductor
at the Hallwyl Opera Festival in Switzerland.
She had her European debut with Bizet's "The Fair Maid of Perth" at
this festival, to which she returned in 2009 to conduct Smetana's "The
Bartered Bride". She is a conductor at the Senzoku Gakuen College of
Music, and the Soai Orchestra in Japan.
This year's Premieres concert will, in addition to featuring three R
Schumann, Strauss and Mendelssohn works never before played in Colombo,
will have another unusual touch in that of the four works performed,
three are in E flat major, and one is in the relative key of C minor. It
is interesting to note that three of the four works to be performed, are
in E flat major, and the fourth, the Mendelssohn overture, is in the
relative C minor (they both have three flats in the key signature). The
pick of the works to be performed is perhaps Schumann's finest
orchestral work, the Rhenish Symphony in E flat, for which 'the nobility
and spirit' of the Rhine river and its people had been his inspiration.
The piece is a truly monumental romantic five-movement symphony, which
will receive its first performance in Sri Lanka. The fourth movement is
a luxuriously orchestrated contrapuntal masterpiece, a challenge for any
conductor. R. Strauss' rousing Fanfare was written for the Trompeterchor
(Brass Band) of the City of Vienna in 1943. Its two minutes features
some brass playing of great brilliance.
Renowned Japanese horn player Atsushi Kimura is guest soloist for
Mozart's Third Horn Concerto, also to be premiered at the Concert. |
