Austin Symphony Kicks Off 06-07 Season This Weekend
While it may only be two thirds as tittilating as the panty raid party at Beauty Bar happening shortly thereafter, the Austin Symphony opens its 96th season tomorrow night at Bass Concert Hall, with a program featuring Grammy Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell and works by William Schuman, Beethoven, and Brahms.
Bell, who plays a 1713 Stradivarius Gibson ex Huberman valued somewhere in the millions, has garnered accolades and recognition far too numerous to list. From critically-acclaimed recordings on Sony Classical that went multi-platinum and being named one of People's 50 Most Beautiful People to recently being inducted into the Hollywood Bowl's Hall of Fame and, according to his wiki page, dating Natalie Portman, Bell has accomplished much in his career -- and he's not yet 40.
This weekend's opening performances (Friday and Sunday) will finish with Brahms' Second Symphony in D Major, a pastoral work of extraordinary beauty that Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick hailed at the time as "a great, unqualified success." You can find a rather dense analysis by Harvard University's Reinhold Brinkmann here, but, suffice it to say, it's one of the only works of classical music that Austinist will drop anything -- except, in this case, trou -- to witness performed live.
The full program:
Schuman: American Festival Overture
Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D, Op. 61
Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 73
[Austin Symphony Program Notes by David Mead]
[Diane Rehm Interviews Joshua Bell]
Joshua Bell and the Austin Symphony
Works by Schuman, Beethoven, and Brahms
Friday, September 1st
Sunday, September 3rd
8pm
Tickets ($19-$42)
Photo from label
