© 2024 WRTI
Your Classical and Jazz Source. Celebrating 75 Years!
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

The Philadelphia Orchestra In Concert on WRTI 90.1: John Adams and Leila Josefowicz In The Spotlight

Riccardo Mussacchio
Composer/conductor John Adams

Join us on Sunday, May 10th at 1 PM and Monday, May 11th at 7 PM on WRTI HD-2 when The Philadelphia Orchestra In Concert broadcast brings to the Verizon Hall stage violinist Leila Josefowicz, who joins guest conductor John Adams for a performance of the composer/conductor’s own work, Scheherazade.2, his updating—through the lens of  modern sensitivities—of the One Thousand and One Nights tale.

Scheherazade.2is actually an extraordinary violin concerto, and in Ms. Josefowicz, Adams seems to have found the perfect embodiment of the kind of empowered strength and energy that a modern Scheherazade would possess!

Credit Chris Lee
Violinist Leila Josefowicz

Before intermission, the Orchestra performs Maurice Ravel’s Alborado del Gracioso, an orchestral favorite from his Miroirs, and a short concert piece that Igor Stravinsky fashioned on themes from his opera based on a story by Hans Christian Andersen about an enchanted bird whose melodies charm the Emperor of China—The Song of the Nightingale.

Ravel was born to a Basque mother in the Pyrenees, not far from the Spanish border, and, like other composers of his time, he was fascinated with Spain. His first Spanish-themed piece was the spirited work that references the gracios—the stock character of the “court jester” in the classical Spanish theater of Lope de Vega and others.

Stravinsky’s Song of the Nightingale consists of music taken from his opera, The Nightingale, with solo instruments taking the vocal parts, and there will be a lot of solos for the Philadelphia Orchestra’s splendid musicians, among them Associate Principal Oboe Peter Smith, First Associate Concertmaster Juliette Kang, Principal Harp Elizabeth Hainen, and Principal Flute Jeffrey Khaner.

POIC19110LJosefowicz.mp3
Violinist Leila Josefowicz chats with WRTI's Susan Lewis.

During intermission, WRTI's Susan Lewis speaks backstage with Leila Josefowicz.

These are three colorful orchestral works you won’t want to miss, on Sunday, May 10th from 1 to 3 PM on WRTI 90.1, Monday, May 11th at 7 PM on our HD-2 channel, and streaming worldwide at WRTI.org!

PROGRAM:

Ravel: Alborado del Gracioso

Stravinsky: Song of the Nightingale

INTERMISSION

Adams: Scheherazade.2

Leila Josefowicz, violin

The Philadelphia Orchestra

John Adams, conductor

Gregg Whiteside is producer and host of The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert broadcasts, every Sunday at 1 PM on WRTI 90.1, streaming online at WRTI.org, on the WRTI mobile app,and your favorite smart speaker! Listen again on Mondays at 7 PM on WRTI HD-2.

And now until June, 2020: Listen to a weekly schedule of re-broadcasts of additional archival Philadelphia Orchestra concerts. Each program airs Thursday at 7 PM on WRTI HD-2 and streaming online, and again on Friday at 1 PM on WRTI 90.1, and our classical stream.

Gregg was the host of WRTI's morning drive show from 2012 until his retirement from WRTI in January, 2021. He began producing and hosting The Philadelphia Orchestra In Concert broadcasts in 2013, joining the Orchestra in Hong Kong for the first-ever live international radio broadcasts from that island in 2016, and in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for two historic broadcasts in 2018. You can still hear Gregg as host of the Orchestra broadcasts every Sunday and Monday on WRTI.