New Jersey Symphony to Perform All-Tchaikovsky Program, 4/12-14

Related: New Jersey Symphony, Tchaikovsky, Jonathan Spitz

Music Director Jacques Lacombe and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra present an all-Tchaikovsky program featuring Variations on a Rococo Theme, performed by NJSO Principal Cello Jonathan Spitz, April 12-14 in Trenton, Red Bank and Englewood. The Polonaise from Eugene Onegin opens the program, which culminates in Tchaikovsky's mighty Fifth Symphony.

Performances take place on Friday, April 12, (7:30 pm) at the War Memorial in Trenton, Saturday, April 13, (8 pm) at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank and Sunday, April 14, (3 pm) at bergenPAC in Englewood.

"For this Tchaikovsky program, we wanted to show several aspects of his work," Lacombe says. "Eugene Onegin has a special place in my heart, and we perform the Polonaise to present Tchaikovsky the opera composer. The Rococo Variations show Tchaikovsky's more classical period. You find ballet music in almost every page Tchaikovsky writes, so when you hear the Fifth Symphony, you can almost hear Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker.

"To perform the Rococo Variations with Jonathan Spitz as the soloist will be very special-for the audience, for the Orchestra and for me."

Tickets start at $20 and are available for purchase online at www.njsymphony.org or by phone at 1.800.ALLEGRO (255.3476).

The NJSO is partnering with The Community FoodBank of New Jersey to fight hunger. At NJSO subscription concerts in April, the Orchestra and volunteers will collect non-perishable food items to donate to The Community FoodBank, which assists more than 900,000 people in 18 counties across New Jersey. Patrons can bring food donations to the concert hall and drop off items at a collection table in the lobby. More details, a full list of concerts at which the Orchestra will collect food donations and a list of acceptable food items are available at www.njsymphony.org/fooddrive.

THE PROGRAM

Exuberant Tchaikovsky

Friday, April 12 at 7:30 pm | War Memorial in Trenton Saturday, April 13 at 8 pm | Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank Sunday, April 14 at 3 pm | bergenPAC in Englewood

Jacques Lacombe, conductor Jonathan Spitz, cello
New Jersey Symphony Orchestra

Polonaise from Eugene Onegin Variations on a Rococo Theme Symphony No. 5

Jacques Lacombe, conductor: New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Music Director Jacques Lacombe is renowned as a remarkable conductor whose artistic integrity and rapport with orchestras have propelled him to international stature. Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal from 2002 to 2006, he led the orchestra in more than 100 performances. He served for three years as Music Director of both orchestra and opera with the Philharmonie de Lorraine in France; he has been Music Director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Trois-Rivières since 2006.

Following the stunning Mahler 9 concerts that closed the NJSO season in June 2012, Lacombe returned to the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden to lead performances of Puccini's La bohème starring Roberto Alagna and Angela Georghiu.

In the 2012-13 season, Lacombe conducts the Opéra de Nice in an all-orchestra program and leads subscription weeks with the symphony orchestras of Québec, Toledo and Montreal, the last in a program of Bernstein and Debussy with pianist Kirill Gerstein; he also makes his Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra debut on a program featuring Branford Marsalis. He returns to the Deutsche Oper Berlin to lead Carmen.

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