Midori! / Britt Orchestra

Friday, August 15, 2008 • 8 p.m.

This Beethoven overture was composed as music for a play about Hungary's first monarch, King Stephen. Dramatic and full of energy, it was completed just before Beethoven composed his Seventh Symphony and shows the composer's genius in full bloom.

The Britt Orchestra will also perform another work of genius-Mozart's last, and many say greatest, symphony. In Woody Allen's 1979 film Manhattan, his character regards the second movement of this symphony to be one of the reasons why life is worth living. The Finale of the "Jupiter" Symphony is exhilarating, dazzling and truly sublime. A work of innovative genius by the greatest compositional prodigy the world has ever known.

And last, but not least, the program featur es Midori. During her early years at Aspen, Midori met Pinchas Zukerman, who later said, "Out comes this tiny little thing, not even ten at the time. I was sitting on a chair and I was as tall as she was standing. She tuned, she bowed to the audience, she bowed to me, she bowed to the pianist - and then she played the Bartók Second Concerto, and I went bananas. I sat there and tears started coming down my cheeks. I said, 'Do you play something else?' and through an interpreter, she said, 'Yes, the Sauret cadenza of the Paganini Concerto.' Ten years old, and she already played the Sauret cadenza like only a few people in the entire universe can do at any time! I'm talking about forever. And she had a tiny little half-size violin, but the sound that came out - it was ridiculous. I was absolutely stunned. I turned to the audience and said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know about you, but I have just witnessed a miracle.'"

Don't miss the miracle of Midori at Britt!

For more information about Midori, visit http://www.gotomidori.com

Pre-concert talk at 7 p.m. by Ilana Rubenfeld, graduate of Juilliard School of Music and assistant conductor to Leopold Stokowski.

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