A little help from his friends

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This article was published 21/02/2019 (1883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and its audiences will begin to cash in the musical dividends that come with the 2018 hiring of music director Daniel Raiskin.

Those dividends come from Raiskin’s extensive list of contacts in the classical world, many of whom highlight the 2019-20 WSO season, which was announced Friday night at the Centennial Concert Hall.

Raiskin’s Rolodex includes three soloists — violinists Benjamin Schmid and Vadim Gluzman, as well as Russian pianist Alexei Volodin — who will perform alongside the WSO during the 2019-20 season.

“These are people who very strongly define my artistic DNA,” Raiskin says. “These not only are my dear and longtime friends, but very special partners onstage that I have been performing with. The people whom I’m onstage with are an extension of who I am. It’s a way of showing even more of myself and my insight to Winnipeggers.

“These three are of particular importance to me. I’m glad that, in my second season, we were able to secure dates with all three.”

Raiskin says he’s recorded several CDs with Schmid as a soloist and the two have worked together for 25 years, first as chamber musicians and now with Schmid as soloist and Raiskin as conductor.

The Austria-born Schmid performs with the symphony Sept. 27-28 as the WSO tackles symphonies by Mozart, Brahms as well as Korngold’s Violin Concerto. On March 6 and 7, 2020, Raiskin will lead the WSO and Alexei Volodin — like Raiskin, a native of St. Petersburg, Russia — in a concert titled Back to Back Beethoven. On March 6, Volodin will play the first three of Beethoven’s piano concertos; on March 7, he takes on Ludwig’s fourth and fifth concertos, followed by Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy.

“To find a pianist who can play all five piano concertos of Beethoven and Choral Fantasy on two evenings, not everyone can do it,” Raiskin says. “With Alexei, I’ve often performed all five concertos in one evening. This guy has such incredible power and stamina and finesse at the same time to tackle this gigantic task.”

Gluzman, an Israeli violinist who was born in Ukraine and spent his childhood in Latvia, will perform Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto on the same violin that played the piece the very first time, in 1881 — a Stradivarius made in 1690.

The year 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, and the German composer’s works will be filling concert halls round the world all year. The WSO will do its part, first with the Back to Back Beethoven concerts in March, followed by performing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 — arguably the most recognizable piece of music ever created — as the centrepiece of a 2020 tour of the Netherlands.

“The personality of Beethoven, and his music to a great extent, changed the emotional spectrum of what classical music was able to do,” Raiskin says. “It’s not just celebrating a person, it’s celebrating the whole idea of humanity and what art, and music in particular, are capable of.”

Singing into the new season

The WSO will continue its recent tradition of welcoming an international star to launch the new season. On Sept. 17, the 2019-20 lineup begins with Grammy Award-winning soprano Renée Fleming, who will make her Winnipeg debut when she performs two works by German composer Richard Strauss: Four Last Songs and Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks.

“There’s few people in the music business… that really make the history, really through their stage presence, with their artistry, with their incredible natural gift,” Raiskin says. “Renée Fleming is one of these artists who is legendary in both the concert stage, and opera in particular… She can do it all.

“I grew up as a musician listening to dozens of her recordings and concerts. Sharing a stage with her and bringing her to Winnipeg will be an incredible honour.

“There are just a few people in what we do who fit this idea of being a superstar. Not necessarily from a marketing point of view, but really from the incredible respect and love they get from hundreds of thousands of followers and musicians and listeners alike.

“I love working with the singers where I feel they use their voice instrumentally,” he says. “Only a few actually can. Those who do are incredibly diligent with the gift of nature they’ve got.”

 

Pops lineup

The new season includes a packed pops menu that includes jazz (Pink Martini, Sept. 20-21), appearances by award-winning indie rock artists (Jeremy Dutcher, Oct. 9; Serena Ryder, Feb. 20, 2020), Christmas classics (New York Voices, Dec. 13-15), superhero-inspired scores (Nov. 8-10), films filled with fantasy (Jurassic Park, Oct. 26-27; Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, Nov. 30-Dec. 1; Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, April 4-5, 2020), former Cirque du Soleil acrobats (Troupe Vertigo, March 13-15, 2020) and the stars of Rainbow Stage (Crazy For You, April 17-19).

 

alan.small@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @AlanDSmall