The Santa Barbara Symphony kicks off the second half of its 2019-20 season with Beethoven’s “Eroica” Jan. 18-19 at the Granada Theatre.
The evening opens with Michael Torke’s Ash, followed by world-renowned Israeli pianists Sivan Silver and Gil Garburg performing a unique arrangement for piano four-hands and strings based on Johannes Brahms’ G minor Piano Quartet, Op. 25.
The program will close with Beethoven’s revolutionary “Eroica” Symphony, conducted by the symphony’s music and artistic director, Nir Kabaretti.
The program has been made possible by selection sponsors JoAnne Ando, Hans Koellner and Karin Jacobson, and Dr. Robert W. Weinman.
During January Symphony Concert Week, symphony donors who contribute $5,000 or more to the Annual Fund are invited to a Prelude Event, Friday, Jan. 17, hosted by Symphony Board member Sarah Chrisman and her husband Roger.
At the event, Kabaretti will introduce Sivan and Gil before the duo offers attendees a preview of their performance on the Chrismans’ two grand pianos. Wine and hors d’oeuvres will be served.
Contact Anaïs Pellegrini, vice president of advancement, 805-898-0107, for more information about this event and annual giving opportunities at the Santa Barbara Symphony.
Silver and Garburg will present a special arrangement of Brahms’ “Piano Quartet, Op. 25,” created expressly for the duo by contemporary Austrian composer Richard Dünser, who combined Brahms’ two original versions of the quartet.
After 20 years of playing together, Sivan Silver and Gil Garburg have established themselves at the top echelon of the music world. The duo has delighted audiences and critics on five continents with their visually stunning and emotionally evocative performances.
“As a piano duo, it’s easy to make effects with virtuosity. But that alone is far too little,” the two explain on their website. “We want to move our listeners emotionally and bring them to the core of the music.”
Honoring Beethoven’s 250th birthday, the symphony will close the evening with the emotional Symphony No. 3 “Eroica.” Groundbreaking and heroic, Beethoven’s “Eroica” stretched the boundaries of form, length and harmony.
Commenting on the influence of Beethoven’s confessional and confrontational composition, American composer William Flanagan said: “The appearance of no single work has so completely and irretrievably altered the face of art.”
The symphony will also be Michael Torke’s performing “Ash,” a winner of the American Prix de Rome as well as grants and prizes from the Koussevitzky Foundation, among others. Torke is one of a handful of American composers supporting himself entirely through his compositions.
“Ash” was commissioned by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and has been described as “eclectic with energy, a gleaming modernization of the dynamic motor rhythms that drive the Baroque masterpieces of Johann Sebastian Bach.”
For tickets, visit thesymphony.org, granadasb.org, or call the Granada Theatre Box Office, 805-899-2222.
The Silver-Garburg Duo has performed in some 70 countries and collaborated with the Israel Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Melbourne Symphony, and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie.
Since 2014, the duo has occupied one of the few extant professorships for piano duo at the Graz University for the Arts. They present master classes at leading academic institutes in Moscow, Beijing, Melbourne, Vienna, Jerusalem, Wellington and Helsinki.
For more about the Santa Barbara Symphony, visit www.thesymphony.org.
— Jennifer Zacharias for The Santa Barbara Symphony.