“The world premiere of a piano concerto by Jonathan Leshnoff that was commissioned by the Kansas City Symphony” is set to take place on November 22, writes Patrick Neas in Friday’s (11/15) Kansas City Star. Michael Stern will conduct the program, which will feature Joyce Yang as piano soloist and also include Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra and the Adagio from Mahler’s Symphony No. 10. “Like most of his music, Leshnoff says his piano concerto is imbued with concepts from Kabbalah. Leshnoff says that the second movement is a musical evocation of the Kabbalah concept of ‘neshama’ or soul…. Leshnoff says that according to the Kabbalah, the soul has three levels; the lower [levels] focus on action and speech. Neshama, the third level of the soul, deals with thought…. Leshnoff often speaks of self-actualization. For him, self-actualization comes down to living your full potential. ‘No one told me to be a composer,’ Leshnoff said. ‘I was given a talent, but I could have done anything.… Everyone and everything has a place in the universe and we are all becoming our actual selves, and that requires work and effort, but eventually you can actualize the potential that you have.’ ”
Posted November 21, 2019
