Overture Magazine: 2017-2018 Season FINAL_BSO_Overture_May_June | Page 27

at 14 Gerstein moved to the U.S., where
he was the youngest student to attend
Boston’s Berklee College of Music. He
studied with Solomon Mikowsky in New
York, Dmitri Bashkirov in Madrid and
Ferenc Rados in Budapest. Gerstein won
First Prize at the 10 th Arthur Rubinstein
Competition in 2001. In 2002, he won
a Gilmore Young Artist Award and,
in 2010, both an Avery Fisher Career
Grant and the Gilmore Artist Award,
which provided the funds for him to
commission new works from Timothy
Andres, Chick Corea, Alexander Goehr,
Oliver Knussen and Brad Mehldau.
Gerstein taught at the Stuttgart
Hochschule Musik from 2007 to 2017
and, beginning in the fall of 2018,
will teach at the Kronberg Academy’s
newly announced Sir András Schiff
Performance Program for Young Artists.
DOWNTOWN
BALTIMORE
Kirill Gerstein last appeared with the BSO
in January 2011, performing Rachmaninoff's
Piano Concerto No. 1, Marin Alsop, conductor.
About the Concert
SUITE FROM THE FIREBIRD (1919)
Igor Stravinsky
Born in Oranienbaum, Russia, June 17, 1882;
died in New York City, NY, April 6, 1971
Igor Stravinsky’s score for the fairy-tale
ballet The Firebird, particularly in its
suite adaptation, is far and away his most
popular work. For nearly six decades,
the composer conducted it hundreds of
times, even though he had since moved
on to more radical styles. In fact, it
became almost impossible to believe that
this fearless modernist had actually once
written such a lush and sensual score:
a grand summation of the 19 th -century
Russian fascination with fantastic plots
and opulent instrumental colors.
The Firebird’s music needed to be lush
for it was written for Serge Diaghilev’s
spectacular Ballets Russes, which
was dazzling Paris during the seasons
immediately preceding World War I.
Diaghilev had a genius for assembling
the greatest Russian dancers as well as
scenic designers, poets and composers
THE CITY IS
IN YOUR POCKET.
GoDowntownBaltimore.com
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and a place to call your own.

M AY–J U N 2018 / OV E R T U R E
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