Matthew Kraemer will lead the BPO on Sunday, July 15 at 7pm, for its sole performance this summer at Artpark in Lewiston.

The BPO launches a new summer series at Kleinhans Music Hall

For quite a few years now, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra has traditionally presented a summer series of free, outdoor concerts at various parks and other locations around Western New York, and also a series of multiple ticketed events at Artpark in Lewiston. While the First Niagara Free Summer Concerts in the Parks Series continues, the long standing BPO series at Artpark has been reduced to a single event, on Sunday, July 15.

Bolstered perhaps, by the unusually high attendance at the two events that the BPO presented in Kleinhans Music Hall at the beginning of last July, one of which was, of course the highly unusual make-up appearance, due to a prior illness, of the Chinese pianist Lang Lang, the most highly sought after classical music performer in the world, the management of the orchestra decided to schedule a new concert series at Kleinhans at 7pm on three consecutive Friday nights in July—July 13, 20 and 27—with the first two concerts under the baton of BPO associate conductor Matthew Kraemer, while music director JoAnn Falletta is on the podium for the final event. Patrons are invited to come to Symphony Circle early and bring a picnic to enjoy on the grounds near Kleinhans’ beautiful reflecting pool. Relish the early start-time and a chance to mingle with the musicians before and after the performances.

Artpark

Matt Kraemer will lead the BPO on Sunday, July 15 at 7pm, for its sole performance this summer at Artpark in Lewiston. BPO concertmaster Michael Ludwig will be the soloist in Mozart’s final concerto written for solo violin, the Concerto No. 5 in A major for Violin and Orchestra, K. 219. The program opens with Berlioz’s exciting Roman Carnival Overture and includes Mendelssohn’s popular Symphony No. 4 in A major, Opus 90 (“Italian”), as well as Tchaikovsky’s brilliantly orchestrated showpiece, the Capriccio italien.

BPO Summer Nights@Kleinhans

On Friday, July 13, BPOlé!, the concert event from last July that undoubtedly most inspired the new series, returns to Kleinhans. This event was wildly popular last year, and no wonder, since besides featuring the BPO performing a wide range of ear-catching Latin American classical music selections it also featured Wendell Rivera and his Latin Jazz Ensemble, who are returning for this event, and it welcomed concert goers to take part in pre-concert dance lessons and stay after the concert for a Latin Dance Party in the Mary Seaton Room.

On Friday, July 20, concert pianist Igor Lipinsky joins the orchestra to perform one of Gershwin’s best-loved works, Rhapsody in Blue. The concert also includes orchestral highlights from Porgy and Bess, and Richard Rodger’s Slaughter on 10th Avenue, and after the concert you can enjoy a stylish 1920s cabaret with a jazz trio for dancing in the Mary Seaton Room.

For the final concert in the new series, on Friday, July 27, music director JoAnn Falletta takes the podium to lead the BPO in a program featuring one of the most popular works in the symphonic repertoire, Ravel’s Bolero. The program includes works by Offenbach, Chabrier, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Miklos Rozsa’s Theme and Variations, written for the great violinist Jascha Heifetz and his equally celebrated collaborator, the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, featuring BPO musicians Feng Hew, cello, and Shieh-Jian Tsai, violin.

As an added incentive to attend this new series, subscriptions to all three concerts are available starting at $39 and if you buy two, you get one free.

Jan and Amy Williams

Terry Riley’s In C at the Burchfield Penny

On Friday, July 13 at 9pm as part of M&T Second Fridays at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, video artists from Squeaky Wheel will screen new compositions to accompany a rare, live performance of In C, Terry Riley’s 1964 seminal minimalist work. In C has had a lasting influence on the work of composers such as Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and John Adams, as well as popular music groups like Pink Floyd and The Who.

The Creative Associates of the Center for the Creative and Performing Arts at SUNY Buffalo, under the leadership of Lukas Foss, gave the New York City premiere of In C in 1967 on a concert program in the influential Contemporary Music at Carnegie Hall series. A recording of the work made in conjunction with that performance, under the direction of the composer himself, has remained available in the catalog up to the present day.

Percussionist Jan Williams, who took part in that 1967 Carnegie Hall performance, will be joined for this performance by his daughter Amy Williams, professor of piano at the University of Pittsburgh, on keyboard, who will play “The Pulse”—two C notes on the piano for the entire length of the work—along with percussionist John Bacon, bass flutist Michael Colquhoun, with Don Metz on electric guitar. Video artists represented include Patrick Cain, Tony Conrad, Andrew Deutsch, Vince Mistretta, Scott Puccia, and a collective work by Squeaky Wheel Board/Staff Members.

For more information, visit www.burchfieldpenney.org.