Classical

2nd symphony concert

Tuesday, 12/12/2023 / 08:00 PM / Konzerthaus Freiburg (Concert hall)

Intermission catering Rain or shine Wheelchair-accessible

Anna Rakitina is one of the shooting stars of the international conducting scene: after various competition successes in the mid-2010s, she initially enjoyed an astonishing career, especially in the USA: Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, then assistant to Andris Nelsons in Boston, and in quick succession conducting with other major American orchestras, e.g. in Chicago and New York. In Freiburg, she contributes one of the most exuberant symphonies ever to the round of great orchestral works. Seemingly boundless is the energy that flows from Sergei Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony, almost infinite its melodic lines. In its slow movement, time almost stands still. Against Rachmaninov, Anna Rakitina sets Ellen Reid's symphonic poem FLOODPLAIN, which handles the orchestral colors no less voluptuously than its older Russian colleague. Reid belongs to the same generation of young female composers as Caroline Shaw, who also perform as musicians themselves and move effortlessly in composition and interpretation between E and U, between pop and classical, between live music and digital productions. FLOODPLAIN (meaning roughly "river floodplain" or "flood meadows") premiered and was celebrated in Los Angeles in 2022, after a two-year, corona-induced delay: "In FLOODPLAIN, the orchestra rises and falls, like a river of sounds overflowing its banks and then losing itself again. Tremolos are omnipresent, in lush strings, sharp winds and shimmering percussion. Expressive solo passages for violin and cello could be heard as living creatures in the scene - but probably not as humans, as they are too absorbed in the texture (...). Luminous melodies, or at least hints of such, emerge only at the end, suggesting floodplains that now merge with the surroundings" (Los Angeles Times).