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Chineke! European Tour: Elbphilharmonie

  • Elbphilharmonie 4 Platz der Deutschen Einheit Hamburg, HH, 20457 Germany (map)

photo Mark Allen

This concert is part of a European summer tour which will also visit the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Helsinki Music Centre and the Lucerne Festival. Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Kevin John Edusie renew their partnership which began in 2017 when conductor, soloist and orchestra made their BBC Proms debut together. This tour features Sheku as soloist in Shostakovich's 2nd Cello Concerto performed alongside Brian's Nabors Pulse which is, in the composer's words, a contemplation of daily life as we know it, combined with thoughts of life in nature, and the programme ends with the first performance in Snape of William Dawson's African-American Folk Symphony which was first performed in 1934 by the Philadelphia Orchestra and Leopold Stokowski and then revised in 1952 incorporating a rhythmic foundation inspired by the composer's journey to West Africa

DIVERSITY!

"Promote change and celebrate diversity in classical music." That's the motto of the English Chineke! Orchestras and thus the first ensemble in Europe in which musicians of all skin colors sit next to each other as a matter of course. The programme, in which the English rising star cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason plays a leading role, is correspondingly varied.

Under the direction of Kevin John Edusei, Kanneh-Mason addresses the captivating expressive extremes of Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 2 from 1966. The orchestra brings along the effective piece »Pulse« by the young Englishman Brian Raphael Nabors.

While the main symphonic work is by the African-American William Levi Dawson. It is his African-American Folk Symphony that the legendary Leopold Stokowski premiered in 1934 with the Philadelphia Orchestra in New York's Carnegie Hall. After that, the audience went wild with excitement. And the New York music critics even celebrated the work as »the most promising symphonic proclamation in America«.

Programme:

Brian Nabors Pulse

Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 2

William Dawson African-American Folk Symphony

Kevin John Edusei, conductor & Sheku Kanneh-Mason, cello

Earlier Event: August 25
Chineke! European Tour: Snape Maltings
Later Event: August 29
Chineke! European Tour: Musiikkitalo