Osmo vanska conductor reviews

I give the Seattle Symphony high marks for creative and adventuresome programming. The March 24 program was a case in point. Two of the featured composers were Russian, though placing Tchaikovsky&#;s floridly romantic and over-popular First Piano Concerto against Prokofiev&#;s bitingly austere and rarely heard Symphony No.

6 on each side of the intermission mostly emphasized the aesthetic gulf between them. But opening the program with the sharply contemporary &#;Of Rats and Men&#; by Korean composer Donghoon Shin was an instance of odd bedfellows that, through Osmo Vänskä&#;s presence as the guest conductor, curiously rested comfortably together.

The American premiere of Donghoon Shin&#;s &#;Of Rats and Men&#; turned out to be a bracing way to begin the concert.  Based on two short stories, Franz Kafka’s “Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk” and Roberto Bolañ