Sat 1/14 @ 7:30PM
Classical music isn’t preserved in amber, and it isn’t just the province of (mostly) dead white men anymore. In recent years, classical music presenters and orchestras have been going out of their way to demonstrate this, mixing overlooked pieces from the past by women and composers of color, and new works by living composers with their regular offerings of Bach, Beethoven and Mozart.
The Akron Symphony, which devoted the past season to programming a work by a woman composer on each concert, has actively looked to blend old and new. This week the “new” includes a work by 28-year-old African-American composer and double bass performer Xavier Foley, whom they describe as “one of the most charismatic performers to emerge in the last decade.” It’s a double concerto titled “For Justice and Peace,” and will feature Foley himself as one of the soloists and Korean-born violinist Eunice Kim as the other.
The program also includes another double bass showcase, 19th century composer and double bassist Giovanni Bottesini’s Double Bass Concerto No. 2. And “Pastoral” by 20th-century African-American composer Julia Perry continues the orchestra’s commitment to exposing music by women and Black composers; as a bonus, Perry (1924-1979) grew up in Akron and is buried there.
Don’t worry — the program also features justly beloved works by dead white guys. It opens with J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and closes with Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. Akron Symphony music director Christopher Wilkins conducts the concert at E.J. Thomas Hall, which also features members of the Gospel Meets Symphony Choir
Go here for tickets.