Alissa Firsova is ready will collaborate with St Albans Symphony Orchestra (SASO) on May 12 as soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No 1.
Alissa, who grew up in St Albans after moving from Russia with her composer parents, has forged a career as a composer, conductor and pianist. She has recently recorded a composer-portrait of album of her music to be released as Firsova Fantasy and is scheduled to appear this autumn as recitalist for the Amsterdam Piano Series in the world-famous Concertgebouw.
Since winning the BBC Proms/Guardian Young Composer competition in 2001, her music has received two world premieres at the Proms. As a pianist she has recorded Russian Emigres, an album of music by Rachmaninov, her parents and herself.
The Tchaikovsky concerto, from the famous octave chords at the opening to its lyrical slow movement and a fiery, heroic finale has been a favourite with audiences for almost 150 years. Notwithstanding its popularity, it was initially deemed “unplayable" by one 19th century virtuoso and continues to present the soloist with exceptional technical as well as musical challenges.
In an all-Russian programme the orchestra under Principal Conductor Tom Hammond will also perform the suite that Stravinsky published in 1945 from The Firebird – he first of his great ballets from the early 20th century. Coloured with Russian folk idiom, the music is not so obviously ground-breaking as Petrushka and The Rite of Spring that followed, but it brings its fairy tale subject to vivid life with revolutionary scoring and musical effects.
SASO’s will open its concert with the fizzing Festive Overture by Shostakovich– a crowd-pleaser since its premiere, despite being written in just three days to fill a gap in a concert to celebrate the 37th anniversary of the Soviet revolution.
St Saviour’s Church, St Albans, AL1 4DF, May 12, 7.30pm. Details: tickets@saso.org.uk or www.ticketsource.co.uk
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