Shelley, Grimaud & Gershwin: & Stravinsky's The Firebird

Three things to know:

Among Igor Stravinsky’s most cinematic scores, The Firebird was heard in movie theatres around the world in Disney’s Fantasia 2000. Inspired by jazz, blues, and ragtime, George Gershwin’s concerto for solo piano and orchestra will immediately transport you to 1920s New York. Our musicians will be joined by members of the NACO Mentorship Program, who represent some of today’s brightest early-career artists.

Composed two years before Igor Stravinsky caused riots in Paris with The Rite of Spring, his ballet The Firebird hypnotized the city’s music lovers with a tale of spine-tingling suspense and supernatural wonder. Experience a musical journey of the imagination with Stravinsky’s magical score, which offers all the elements of your favourite fairy tales: enchanted gardens, brave heroes, ghoulish goblins, and good triumphing over evil.

“Many persons thought the Rhapsody in Blue was only a happy accident,” George Gershwin once wrote. “I went out to show them that there was plenty more where that came from.” Hear the work that solidified Gershwin’s status as one of the greatest composers of his time when pianist Hélène Grimaud—whose performances are “truly balm for the ears” (Bachtrack)—performs the Concerto in F, a jazz-infused American take on the classical concerto.

Opening the program is the concert suite from Kevin Lau’s ballet score Dark Angels—a work of powerful lyricism and savage rhythm that explores humankind’s capacity for both love and violence, as well as our primal need for acceptance.