NJSO to Host FRIDAY NIGHT OUT LGBT Event Featuring Music by Strauss, 4/5

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra presents Friday Night Out-an LGBT event-on Friday, April 5, at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in Newark. The NJSO will host a post-concert champagne and dessert reception-set to the jazz-age sounds of the Michael Arenella Trio-for ticketholders who are LGBT community members and friends.

The April 5 performance at NJPAC begins at 8 pm; a pre-concert Classical Conversation begins at 7 pm. Reservations for the post-concert reception must be made when purchasing tickets for the evening's NJSO concert, using the promotion code FRIDAYOUT.

The LGBT event follows the success of the NJSO's first Friday Night Out at NJPAC-a March 1 College Night event that brought nearly 200 students to the concert hall.

Strauss' Don Juan and Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration) are the centerpieces of a concert program led by highly regarded conductor Susanna Mälkki. The program also features Messiaen' Les offrandes oubliées (The Forgotten Offerings); pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet joins the NJSO for Debussy's Fantasie for Piano and Orchestra.

Of the two Strauss tone poems, Music Director Jacques Lacombe says: "Don Juan is a very flashy and tragic work. [When Strauss composed] Death and Transfiguration, he was a young man, but I find the piece to be his most moving, most sincere work. There is a sense of the spirit of his life and his ambition, but there is also something really profound that speaks to the soul."

Debussy's only piano concerto, Fantasie for Piano and Orchestra, features pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet. "Jean-Efflam and I have been friends for many years," Lacombe says. "I worked with him in Metz, France, and I have wanted to introduce him to New Jersey. He has had an amazing international career, and he is a champion of French and 20th- century music. I am excited to welcome the wonderful Susanna Mälkki to lead this program."

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