Chineke! Orchestra / Sheku Kanneh-Mason / Kevin Edusei
Nabors / Schostakowitsch / Dawson – Elbphilharmonie Summer
Diversity!
»Championing change and celebrating diversity in classical music.« This is the motto of the UK-based Chineke! Orchestra. The programme, featuring the up-and-coming star cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason in a leading role, is equally diverse. Under the direction of Kevin John Edusei, Kanneh-Mason devotes his attention to the captivatingly expressive extremes of Shostakovich’s »Violin Concerto No. 2«, written in 1966. The orchestra pairs this work with an emotive piece, »Pulse«, by the young Englishman Brian Raphael Nabors.
The main symphonic work, however, is by the Afro-American William Levi Dawson. It is his »African-American Folk Symphony«, premiered by the legendary conductor Leopold Stokowski with the Philadelphia Orchestra at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1934. A concert that was met with rapturous applause from the audience. The New York music critics of the day declared the work to be »America’s most promising symphonic proclamation«.
Performers
Chineke! Orchestra
Sheku Kanneh-Mason violoncello
conductor Kevin John Edusei
Programme
Brian Nabors
Pulse für Orchester
Dmitri Schostakowitsch
Konzert für Violoncello und Orchester Nr. 2 g-Moll op. 126
– Interval –
William Levi Dawson
African-American Folk Symphony
Festival
Elbphilharmonie Summer