French conductor promises HCM City night of classics
French fiddler: Violinist and conductor Maryvonne Le Dizes will perform along with the HCM City Ballet Symphony Orchestra and Opera on Saturday. — VNS Photo
HCM CITY (VNS)— Maryvonne Le Dizes, who wields the baton for the France-based Ensemble InterContemporain Symphony, will conduct a concert at the HCM City Opera House on Saturday.
She will conduct the HCM City Ballet Symphony Orchestra and Opera (HBSO), and the event will feature works by composers such as Francesco Geminiani, Benjamin Britten, Astor Piazzolla, and Guillaume Lekeu.
It will also feature Mozart’s Symphony No 25 in G Minor, K183, one of the master’s most popular works for chamber orchestras.
The orchestra will perform Simple Symphony, Op.4 by Britten, a composer, pianist, and conductor, and one of the outstanding figures of 20th century British classical music.
The work, meant for a string orchestra or quartet, was written between 1933 and 1934.
The evening will open with Geminiani’s La Folia, a work for chamber and instrumental orchestra.
It will be followed by Belgian composer Lekeu’s Molto Adagio and Argentine composer Piazzolla’s Tango, both for the string orchestra.
Lekeu, born in 1970, studied under French composer Cesar Franck and has composed some 50 works that have all been recorded multiple times.
He wrote Molto Adagio at age of 16, inspired by the words of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane: “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.”
He died of typhoid in 1894, a day after his 24th birthday.
Piazzolla, born in 1921, was an Argentine tango composer and bandoneon player. He made over the traditional tango into a new style called nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music.
He composed more than 1,000 works all with an Argentine flavour. His life and music have influenced younger generations world-wide.
Le Dizes won the first prize for violin and chamber music at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Paris in 1958.
She became the first woman to win the First Gold Paganini Prize in Genoa in 1962.
In 1983 she won the first prize at the International Competition of American Music in New York, the US.
She has performed in Europe, Japan, and the US.
The show opens at 8pm on March 9 at the Opera House in District 1.
Tickets costing VND200,000-400,000 (US$9.5-$19) are available at the theatre. — VNS