Conductor Sir Neville Marriner and soloist Arabella Steinbacher teamed up with Poland's I, CULTURE Orchestra European youth orchestra in Germany's largest city. Following the Berlin concert, ICO musicians headed to perform at Brussels' Palais des Beaux-Arts
The youth Orchestra rehearsed on stage just after the resident Berliner Philharmonie symphony orchestra wrapped up their rehearsal. The resident conductor, Sir Simon Rattle, was full of praise for the young musicians.
Sir Neville Marriner is the orchestra's Principal Guest Conductor. He started off his musical career as a violinist before going on to study conducting in 1969. He has founded both the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and London's Academy of St Martin in the Fields. He has also held the positions of Music Director and Principal Conductor of both the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra and the Sudwest Deutsche Radio Orchestra in Stuttgart.
In Berlin Marriner was joined by German-born violinist Arabella Steinbacher whose most recent work includes collaboration with the conductor-less Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the San Fransisco Symphony Orchestra, Maggio Musicale in Florence and the Israel Philharmonic. During the 2009-10 season, Arabella Steinbacher made her much-anticipated debut at the BBC Proms at Royal Albert Hall with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra led by Jonathan Nott.
The I, CULTURE Orchestra is made up of musicians from Poland and countries in the EU Eastern Partnership Programme: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldavia and Ukraine and Kiev was the only capital outside the EU to host the Orchestra. The ICO is an initiative of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute which forms one of the most important projects of the Cultural Programme of the Polish Presidency 2011, seeking to highlight the importance of eastern and western influences on joint European cultural identity.
Sir Neville Marriner invited Paweł Kotla, the ICO's artistic director, to take the stage and conduct the encore piece - a fragment of Stanisław Moniuszko's "Halka".
Programme:
Tchaikovsky - Voyevoda (Symphonic Ballad), Op. 78
Szymanowski - Violin concerto no. 1, Op. 35
Tchaikovsky - Symphony no. 4 in F minor, Op.36
Date: 2nd of November, 2011
Venue: Berliner Philharmonie, Berlin
Organised by: Adam Mickiewicz Institute
Project cofinanced by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage
Source: Adam Mickiewicz Institute
Organised by: Adam Mickiewicz Institute
Project cofinanced by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage
Source: Adam Mickiewicz Institute
For more information about the I, CULTURE Orchestra, see: orchestra.iam.pl.