LAS VEGAS PHIL

Philharmonic Performs Music of the Jazz Age on Saturday, April 2^nd and Sunday, April 3^rd at The Smith Center

 

Guest pianist Andrew Armstrong to perform Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue

 

Other works include Stravinsky’s Scherzo à la russe, Milhaud’s La création du monde, Bernstein’s Prelude, Fugue and Riffs and Weill’s Little Threepenny Music

 

Tickets $46, $66 & $96 are available from The Smith Center Box Office 702.749.2000 or lvphil.org

LAS VEGAS (March 7, 2016)-  The Las Vegas Philharmonic performs Gershwin: Music of the Jazz Age on Saturday, April 2, 2016 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 3, 2016 at 2:00 p.m. in Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center. Music Director Donato Cabrera will announce the new 2016 – 2017 concert season at 6:30 p.m. in Reynolds Hall on Saturday and present the Classical Conversation at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday in Reynolds Hall for patrons interested in learning more about the music and history behind the works being performed.

 

The program will open with Igor Stravinsky’s high-spirited Scherzo à la russe.  The film score was originally written for a wartime film set in Russia, but the movie never came to fruition.  The music was re-worked and premiered in 1944 with the San Francisco Symphony.  Following Stravinsky, the orchestra performs Darius Milhaud’s La création du monde, or creation of the world.  The jazz work was commissioned for the ballet company Ballets Suédois and premiered at Paris’s Théâtre des Champs Elysées in 1923.  Next, the Las Vegas Philharmonic presents one of Leonard Bernstein’s most frequently performed shorter works, Prelude, Fugue and Riffs. Bernstein premiered the piece on his television show, “The World of Jazz” in 1955 by the great Benny Goodman.  The music highlights the trumpets, trombones, saxophones and solo clarinet featuring the Las Vegas Philharmonic’s principal clarinetist, Cory Tiffin.

 

To conclude the Philharmonic’s all jazz program, the orchestra performs George Gershwin’s timeless Rhapsody in Blue featuring guest pianist, Andrew Armstrong.  Commissioned by band leader, Paul Whiteman, Rhapsody in Blue premiered in 1924.  Gershwin conceived the work while on his way to Boston, inspired by the rhythmic noises of the train ride.  The piece is regarded as one of America’s most important musical works of the 20^th century.

 

Andrew Armstrong has performed over 50 concertos, impressing international audiences with a large repertoire ranging from Bach to Babbit and beyond