Widely considered to be one of the most innovative and adventurous conductors/programmers in the classical music world, Chief Conductor and Artistic Director Dennis Russell Davies leads the Czech Republic’s own Filharmonie Brno  in a program that includes The Soraya’s first-ever performance of Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, better known as the New World  Symphony. Composed as Dvořák toured the US in the 1890s, the piece with its majestic fanfares, rich harmonies, and brilliant melodies, is widely considered to be the composer’s love letter to America. The pastoral landscape and folklore of Eastern Europe and America are further brought to life through the music of Czech composers Janáček, and Martinů.

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Filharmonie Brno

Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts

For more than a half century, renowned American conductor Dennis Russell Davies has conducted many of the world’s finest orchestras and opera companies and is widely considered one of the most innovative and adventurous conductors in the classical music world. In 2018, Maestro Davies became the Artistic Director & Chief Conductor of the Filharmonie Brno, an orchestra with roots that go back to the 1870s, when then-young composer Leoš Janáček endeavored to establish a Czech symphony orchestra in Brno (the traditional capital of Moravia), now the second largest city in the Czech Republic after Prague. The present orchestra was created in 1956 and has been among the leading Czech orchestras in both size and importance, where the programing of works by Janáček has always been at the core of the orchestra’s repertory. Appropriately, Maestro Davies’s stimulating CAMA concert will feature an outstanding All‑Czech Program of works by three of the greatest Czech composers: Janáček, Dvořák, and Martinů. Maki Namekawa is a leading figure among today’s pianists, bringing to audiences’ attention contemporary music by international composers. In 2019 Philip Glass composed his first Piano Sonata especially for Maki Namekawa, which she premiered that year at Piano‑Festival Ruhr.

Filharmonie Brno

Feb 15, 2023