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Orchestra-Flexing Masterpieces Cap Season For Kalamazoo Symphony

J.B. Millot

Violinist Corey Cerovsek will perform the Violin Concerto No. 2 by Bela Bartok in the season-ending concert by the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra on Friday, May 17 at 8 pm in Miller Auditorium. A nomadic musician from Vancouver, British Columbia who began performing professionally as a child, Cerovsek also maintains an equal interest in mathematics, and recently launched a start-up company in the field of medical technology. For this concert, Cerovsek was up to the challenge of re-learning the Bartok concerto, a piece he has performed 20 years before, in a short period of time as a replacement for the scheduled soloist. 

The Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra will also perform Stravinsky's 1913 ballet The Rite of Spring. It's a work that completely transformed orchestral playing, according to assistant conductor Daniel Brier. He points to the fact that the original performance required 17 orchestral rehearsals to learn the piece, and today, orchestras routinely learn it in four. As for conductors, Brier says that anyone who masters the Rite of Spring will find conducting nearly any other work a little easier.

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Cara Lieurance is the local host of NPR's All Things Considered on 1021 WMUK and covers local arts & culture on Let's Hear It on 89.9 Classical WMUK weekday mornings at 10 - 11 am.
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