Also on the program: World Premiere by CU student Daniel Cox

By Peter Alexander

Philip Glass

The Colorado Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra will perform Philip Glass’ Violin Concerto No. 2: “The American Four Seasons,” but don’t ask which season each movement represents.

Conductor Cynthia Katsarelis explains that the composer left it up to the listener to decide: “The concerto was commissioned by violinist Robert McDuffie,” she says. “But when McDuffie and Glass got together, they didn’t agree on which parts went with which season.

“Glass saw that as an opportunity for the listener to make their own interpretation—and that’s the invitation to our audience.”

The performances (Friday, Feb. 6, in Denver and Saturday, Feb. 7, in Boulder, both at 7:30 p.m.) will feature violinist Yumi Hwang Williams, concertmaster of the Colorado Symphony as soloist. Other works on the program will be the world premiere of . . . I Give you my Sprig of Lilac by CU composition student Daniel Cox, and the Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Katsarelis thinks that Hwang-Williams is the ideal interpreter for Glass’s concerto. “Yumi’s appetite for music goes beyond the orchestral,” Katasrelis says.

“She is a concertmaster who runs the full gamut of repertoire, as concerto soloist she runs the gamut, she has particular experience in the contemporary repertoire, and she’s a formidable chamber musician. All of that comes to bear in making her one of the most fabulously intelligent and deep feeling soloists that you could have.”

Read the full article in Boulder Weekly.

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Cynthia Katsarelis and the Colorado Pro Musica Chamber Orcehstra

“American Seasons”
Pro Musical Colorado Chamber Orchestra
Cynthia Katsarelis conductor, with Yumi Hwang-Williams, violin

7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 6, St. John’s Cathedral, 1350 Washington St., Denver
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 7, First United Methodist Church, 1421 Spruce St., Boulder

Click here for tickets; or call 720-443-0565