Colorado Music Festival

Awadagin Pratt + Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade

Celebrated pianist Awadagin Pratt makes his Festival debut with music old and new, beginning with Bach's nimble Keyboard Concerto in A major. Pratt then performs a piece he commissioned from lauded composer Jessie Montgomery; her Rounds is inspired by an epic poem by T.S. Eliot and the opposing forces that appear in nature — "action and reaction, dark and light, stagnant and swift." In Eastern folklore, the princess Scheherazade told the cruel Sultan 1,001 stories in order to save her own life; Rimsky-Korsakov borrows Scheherazade's tales of royalty, festivals, sea voyages, and more in his richly orchestrated fantasy.

Artists:
Peter Oundjian, conductor
Awadagin Pratt, piano

Program:
Johann Sebastian Bach, Keyboard Concerto in A Major BWV 1055
Jessie Montgomery, Rounds for piano and string orchestra (2022)

Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade

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