Spokane Symphony Opening Night is a Ravel Extravaganza

Sep 5, 2007

For Immediate Release

Contact: Annie Matlow (509) 326-3136

SPOKANE — The Spokane Symphony's Classics Series Opening Night will showcase a stunning selection of French music, featuring pianist Louie Lortie under the direction of Music Director Eckart Preu on Friday, Sept. 14, at 8 p.m. in the INB Performing Arts Center.

The season opening curtain will rise on one of the greatest piece of French music, Pacific 231, written in 1923 by French-Swiss composer Arthur Honegger. This piece is as powerful as the locomotive engine it portrays, orchestrating the hissing steam, screeching wheels and surging power! The remainder of the concert will feature works by Maurice Ravel, including two piano concerti and Ravel's hallmark orchestral arrangement of Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky and arranged by Ravel.

Louie Lortie will be the soloist for both Ravel concertos. The first will be Ravel's Concerto in G Major, which the composer intended as a vehicle to showcase his remarkable performing skills during a North American tour in 1928, is a light-hearted piece influenced by Mozart and jazz. The second, Concerto for the Left Hand, was commissioned by Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right arm during World War I. A masterpiece of one-handed piano music, the score is challenging for most two handed players. The piece is written in a single movement that begins traditionally and erupts into music that was heavily influenced by George Gershwin and Harlem jazz.

The concert concludes with Pictures at an Exhibition, a perennially popular standard of symphonic music. Ravel demonstrates his abilities as an extraordinary orchestrator when he wrote this stunning arrangement of Mussorgsky's work for solo piano, using uncommon instruments like the tuba, alto saxophone and celesta to enrich a glowing orchestral canvas.

Canadian pianist Lortie has been praised for the fresh perspective and individuality he brings to a deliberately broad spectrum of the keyboard canon. He is known for his expertise of the music of Ravel, having performed the complete works of Ravel in London and Montral for the BBC and CBC. Artsopolis says of him:
Profound fluidity, commanding virtuosity, extraordinary precision, and pervasive elegance are hallmarks of French Canadian pianist Louis Lortie. Experience this remarkable musician—who has been dubbed one of a half-dozen pianists worth dropping everything to hear' by London's Daily Telegraph.

Tickets are $17, $27, $35, and $39. Tickets are available in advance without service charge at the Spokane Symphony Ticket office, 818 W. Riverside, Suite 100, or by calling 509-624-1200. Tickets are also available, with service charge, at all TicketsWest outlets or by calling 1-800-325-SEAT, or at spokanesymphony.org.

Sterling Saving Bank is the underwriter of this concert.

CALENDAR LISTING:
Pictures and Imagination Classics Concert; Eckart Preu conducts the Spokane Symphony, Louie Lortie, piano; Sept. 14 at 8:00 p.m. in the INB Performing Arts Center. Tickets are $17 to $39; Call the Spokane Symphony Ticket Office at (509) 624-1200; tickets are also available, with service charges, through TicketsWest outlets or by calling 325-SEAT or 1-800-325-SEAT.