Orchester der Volksoper Wien / Sietzen / Gamzou

Three works in which rhythm and movement play a central role: the Vienna Volksoper Orchestra and conductor Yoel Gamzou take the audience on a journey from New York’s Broadway, through the Nordic soundscapes of Einojuhani Rautavaara, to Sergei Prokofiev’s famous ballet music. Austrian percussionist Christoph Sietzen takes centre stage as the evening’s soloist.

From the streets to the concert hall
With his »Symphonic Dances«, Leonard Bernstein brought together some of the most memorable moments from his »West Side Story« into an orchestral suite. Jazz, Latin American rhythms and grand symphonic gestures characterise the music, in which the energy of the dance scenes is just as present as the tragic love story of Tony and Maria.

Einojuhani Rautavaara’s percussion concerto »Incantations«. Composed in 2008, the work combines the enormous variety of colours found in percussion with a large orchestra. Christoph Sietzen takes on the solo part, making melody, timbre and rhythmic precision equally central to the musical unfolding.

Shakespeare without Words
After the interval, the evening is devoted to Sergei Prokofiev’s »Romeo and Juliet«. Prokofiev compiled several orchestral suites from the music for his ballet, composed in 1935–36. The selected movements distil the story’s contrasts: the intensity of the conflicts between the feuding families, the youthful vigour of the dance scenes and the lyrical moments of the love story. Under the baton of Yoel Gamzou, the Vienna Volksoper Orchestra thus becomes the narrator of a drama that requires no words at all.