ABOUT THE EVENT

JoAnn Falletta, conductor
Nikki Chooi, violin

JoAnn Falletta, a beloved regular conductor with the NOI+F, takes the podium for a program spotlighting the Romantic era, beginning with Hector Berlioz's cinematically enrapturing Symphonie fantastique. The centerpiece of this night of bombastic orchestral music, Berlioz's dramatic first (and likely best known) major symphony captures the somewhat autobiographical story of a heartbroken lover's mad opium trip. The daringly dreamlike composition established Berlioz at the forefront of the new progressive composers of his time. Prior to this five-part fantasy, the NOI Philharmonic will be joined by renowned violinist and Concertmaster of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra Nikki Chooi for a recital of the German Romantic composer Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor. Phenomenally popular since its 1866 premiere, the work's passionately emotional and rigorously complex passages for violin make it one of the classical world's most enduring and exciting bravura showcases. We begin with a brief but equally rousing piece specially selected by Falletta to set the evening's tone: contemporary American composer Adolphus Hailstork's robust Fanfare on Amazing Grace.

PROGRAM
Hailstork: Fanfare on Amazing Grace
Bruch: Violin Concerto No.1 in G Minor
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique

FUNDING

The National Orchestral Institute + Festival is supported in part by the Maryland State Arts Council, The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, the Nicolae Bretan Music Foundation, the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music and The Marinus and Minna B. Koster Foundation.