Bard Music Festival Presents

Program One • The Virtuoso as Composer

Harnessing Bard’s unusual ability to integrate orchestral, vocal, piano and chamber works within a single event, Program One offers an overview of Rachmaninoff’s long career, from two masterful teenage works—his little-known Second String Quartet and perennially popular C-sharp minor Prelude—to his hugely successful Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, written at the height of his powers.

Together with Isle of the Dead, a symphonic poem inspired by Swiss symbolist painter Arnold Böcklin, the program also features examples of the 100-plus songs Rachmaninoff wrote for his close friend Feodor Chaliapin, the legendary Russian bass, and of the composer’s numerous piano transcriptions, including, by way of a tribute to his adopted home, The Star-Spangled Banner.

7:30 pm Preconcert Talk
8 pm Performance: Andrey Gugnin, Kirill Kuzmin, Anna Polonsky & Artem Yasynskyy, piano; Brandon Cedel, bass-baritone; Mané Galoyan, soprano; Viano String Quartet; The Orchestra Now / Leon Botstein, music director

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943)
Songs and piano works, including selections from Op. 11 Morceaux

String Quartet No. 2 (1896)
Isle of the Dead, Op. 29 (1908)
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43 (1934)

For more information, call 845-758-7900, e-mail [email protected],
or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/the-virtuoso-as-composer/.

Time: 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4

Location: Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater

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