“Themed ‘Worlds Away,’ the Topeka Symphony Orchestra’s 2015-16 season will have an international bent to it, starting with three guest soloists who will include a Mexican percussionist playing a concerto written for maracas and orchestra,” writes Bill Blankenship in Saturday’s (7/25) Topeka Capital-Journal (Kansas). “ ‘It sounds insane that you would write a concerto for maracas, but it is one of the best pieces I’ve ever done,’ ” says Topeka Music Director Kyle Wiley Pickett. “Gallardo also will perform the premiere of Mexican composer Hector Infanzon’s Vibraphone Concerto” and works by Silvestre Revueltas and Alberto Ginastera. “The season opener on Oct. 3 … will open with Johannes Brahms’ Third Symphony…. The concert will conclude with Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 … performed by Taiwanese pianist Ching-Yun Hu.… Although the third guest soloist, Terrie Baune, hails from California, she and the orchestra on Jan. 23 will perform ‘Chinese Folk Dance Suite,’ a piece written for her by Chen Yi, a professor of composition at the University of Missouri Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance.” The Topeka Symphony’s coming season includes two additional classical programs and two pops concerts.
Posted July 27, 2015
