The Livermore-Amador Symphony will perform a “Romantic Masterpieces” concert at the Bankhead Theater in Livermore at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 12.
The concert will feature violin virtuoso Elizabeth Pitcairn performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto on her 1720 Red Mendelssohn Stradivarius, said to have inspired the Academy Award–winning film “The Red Violin.”
“I’m particularly excited about this performance, because not only is Elizabeth Pitcairn one of the most remarkable violinists performing today, she’s also a good friend,” said symphony director Lara Webber. “In this performance, she and I are revisiting this concerto together for the first time in a quarter century when we performed it as students at the University of Southern California.”
Webber added that Pitcairn “has a particularly rich and detailed interpretation” of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, noting that “she plays a remarkable instrument that carries much of music history in its DNA. The centuries-old Red Mendelssohn Stradivarius is an instrument like no other, and it truly sings in Elizabeth’s sensitive and expert hands.”
Pitcairn, who made her orchestral debut at 14, studied under violin professor Robert Lipsett at USC. She was a senior in high school when her grandfather gave her the Red Mendelssohn, which he purchased at auction from Christie’s in London in 1990.
In addition to her solo career, Pitcairn is president and artistic director for the Luzerne Music Center in New York, which provides training for gifted young musicians.
She last performed with the Livermore-Amador Symphony in 2015.
The concert will open with the Tchaikovsky’s “Polonaise” from the opera “Eugene Onegin,” described by Webber as “a piece that feels like popping the cork on a great bottle of champagne!”
It will close with “Symphony in D Minor,” the only symphony composed by Belgian-born French composer Cesar Franck.
The Franck symphony is “deeply, personally expressive,” Webber said. “Everything stems from the first theme you hear, and all the primary themes are interwoven and related to one another and return at the end of the symphony in a blaze of glory.”
Webber will also give an “Inside the Music” talk at 7 p.m., prior to the start of the concert.
The “Open Strings World Music Ensemble,” local middle school musicians led by Jim Hurley, will perform in the lobby during intermission, and there will be a complimentary wine and sparkling cider reception in the lobby following the symphony performance.
Tickets start at $30, although tickets are free for those 21 and younger. Tickets are available online at livermoreamadorsymphony.org or by calling 925-373-6800.
