Countdown 2… Dunner

Our search for a new Music Director continues, with our third of four candidates*: Leslie B. Dunner.

Hailed as “dazzling, elegant, polished, and riveting” by critics for his electrifying concert performances, guest conductor Leslie B. Dunner comes to perform a program that is sure to stir concertgoers. Lauded for his world premiere performances of Anthony Davis’s opera “The Central Park Five” winning the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Music, and his “March to Liberation” subscription series concerts with the New York Philharmonic as part of their 2023 Inaugural Season in the new David Geffen Hall.  The New York Times “Critic’s Pick” wrote Dunner’s performances had ” … a streak of urgency and plenty of orchestral splendor… dive-bombing phrases with terrific energy and articulation… style, sagaciously managed, suave, with bursts of piquant personality,” and a concert finale which “came across as grandly cosmic.” Maestro Dunner is joined by Indiana University’s Dean Charles H. Webb Chair in Music, Norman Krieger in Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F major, a work shimmering with orchestrational brilliance.

Join the GBS, Dunner and Krieger, performing masterworks of Haydn, Ginastera, and Gershwin in music that “echoes within for a lifetime!” 

This stylishly unique program affords the audience an opportunity to compare and contrast differing viewpoints of one of the most iconic forms of music utilized in classical culture: the Concerto, in novel and inventive ways.

The evening builds around Haydn’s Symphony No. 6, recognized as the first “Concerto for Orchestra” ever composed. “Papa” Haydn wrote this dazzling work to showcase both his compositional prowess and the excellent musicianship of the orchestra to his new employer, the Prince of Esterhazy.

Ginastera’s Variaciones Concertantes (Concertante Variations) models itself, like Haydn’s work, on being a showcase for the excellence of the orchestral musicians. And, like Haydn, it uses the Baroque “Concerto Grosso” or “Big Concert[o],” passing the work’s main musical theme from one soloist to another, and finally to the full orchestra. Like Haydn, the string bass appears prominently as a featured solo instrument.

This concert also features – for the first time in decades – Gershwin’s Concerto in F, with Norman Krieger at the piano.

A native of Los Angeles, Norman Krieger is one of the most acclaimed pianists of his generation and is highly regarded as an artist of depth, sensitivity and virtuosic flair. As the Los Angeles Times put it, “Krieger owns a world of technique-take that for granted. He always knows exactly where he is going and what he is doing. He never for instant miscalculates. He communicates urgently but with strict control. He is alert to every manner of nuance and at every dynamic level his tone flatters the ear.”

Myung -Whun Chung, Donald Runnicles, Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson Thomas, Jaap van Zweden and Zubin Mehta are just a few of the conductors with whom Krieger has collaborated. Krieger regularly appears with the major orchestras of North America, among them the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra and the National Symphony. He has performed throughout Europe, Asia and South America including tours of Germany, France, Poland, Holland Scandinavia, Korea, China, New Zealand and Israel.

This season, all kids under 19 years old will be admitted FREE when accompanied by an adult; accompanying adults will get 15% off their single ticket prices.  Please note that our concerts will begin one half hour earlier this season, at 7:30 PM.