Featured Artists
Dima Slobodeniouk
Seong-Jin Cho
First Prize winner of the exalted International Chopin Competition at just age 21, Seong-Jin Cho seized the world’s imagination with his “stunningly virtuosic piano feats” (Chicago Classical Review). In this return engagement, the international star performs Rachmaninoff’s mesmerizingly lovely Second Piano Concerto, filled with melodies that have been adopted by movies and popular music (“Full Moon and Empty Arms”), on a program with Sibelius’s vividly evocative Second Symphony.
A handful of international competitions have created a pipeline for phenomenal artists theretofore unknown, often young players who burst upon the musical universe like shooting stars. The buzz that erupted after Seong-Jin Cho’s win at the Chopin International Competition signaled the arrival of a true winner: “blessed not only with a stainless-steel technical arsenal but great musical taste,” answering “dizzying demands with a power, brilliance and note-perfect intensity that was almost unbelievable” (Chicago Classical Review). Here he performs the Rachmaninoff classic that has also laid claim to the world’s imagination, with its unforgettable melodies sung by stars from Frank Sinatra and Celine Dion and featured in such classic films as Grand Hotel, Brief Encounter, and The Seven Year Itch.
Although Sibelius conceived his Second Symphony while visiting Italy, it is filled with images of his Finland home, mythic, windswept Nordic landscapes and lifted by bursts of bold triumph, often attributed to the composer’s passionate support for Finnish independence.
Finnish conductor Dima Slobodeniouk, hailed for “performances of vital intensity, brilliant colour and well-pointed precision” (The Sydney Morning Herald), makes his Philadelphia Orchestra debut in these performances.
Program
Rachmaninoff
Piano Concerto No. 2
Sibelius
Symphony No. 2
Approximate Duration
includes intermission
