Music Director Thomas Søndergård will collaborate with Concertmaster Erin Keefe as soloist in wide-ranging concerts April 11-13. Keefe will perform Max Bruch’s elegant First Violin Concerto, an enduring work premiered in 1866 that today ranks among the most famous violin concertos.
Despite never before performing together as conductor and soloist, Søndergård has long-admired Keefe’s virtuosity: “When I heard Erin play [Strauss’] ‘Ein Heldenleben,’ I just knew that this artist was one that I clicked with immediately,” said Søndergård regarding his debut concerts leading the Orchestra in 2021. “I’m looking so much forward to hearing her play Bruch’s Violin Concerto. I love her musicality, her tone—her sound is just so wonderful.”
The program will take place at Orchestra Hall in downtown Minneapolis on Thursday, April 11, at 11 AM, Friday, April 12, at 8 PM, and Saturday, April 13, at 2 PM, with ticket prices ranging from $30 to $111. Free tickets for all programs are available to young listeners ages 6 to 18 thanks to the Orchestra’s Hall Pass program. The performance on Friday will be broadcast live on stations of YourClassical Minnesota Public Radio, including KSJN 99.5 FM in the Twin Cities. The afternoon performance on Saturday will be immediately followed by an onstage conversation with Søndergård and Minnesota Public Radio’s Melissa Ousley.
Søndergård is highly regarded in working with singers and, in this April program, he will again team up with the Minnesota Chorale for two works. To begin the concert, the ensembles will offer the United States premiere of Eleanor Alberga’s “Rise Up, O Sun!,” which the Orchestra co-commissioned. The choral composition borrows from the poetry of William Blake and aims to — in Alberga’s words — “above all, to celebrate life.” The concert’s second half includes “Schicksalslied,” one of the major choral works of Johannes Brahms. Based on the poetry of Friedrich Hölderlin — a contemporary of Blake — the powerful work draws a contrast between the bliss of the gods and the bleak conditions of humanity.
The program closes with a celebration of spring in Robert Schumann’s joyful “Spring Symphony,” which the composer wrote in the wintertime, inspired by warmer days to come. The music embodies spring’s awakening, youthful exuberance and lyricism, as the symphony is inspired in part by Adolf Böttger’s poem “Frühlingsgedicht.” Søndergård praises Schumann as one of his favorite composers, and the performance of his Symphony No. 1 marks the first time the conductor will lead one of Schumann’s works with the Minnesota Orchestra.
