Frost Music Live! will present a free virtual concert Feb. 20 at 7 p.m. Eastern Time. Gerard Schwarz will conduct the Frost Symphony Orchestra with pianist Santiago Rodriguez performing live from 600-seat Gusman Concert Hall. The Frost Chamber Orchestra will also perform.
To watch and listen to the concert, go to https://youtu.be/slcy1qHUbcs
More details from Frost School of Music (www.frost.miami.edu):
Two of classical music’s most celebrated and distinguished artists will join forces for a special evening, FROST ORCHESTRAS PRESENT THE BOURGEOIS AND THE EMPORER, Saturday, February 20, 2021 at 7:30 PM, Eastern Time. The prestigious members of the Frost School of Music faculty, multi Emmy award winner and GRAMMY nominee Gerard Schwarz will conduct the Frost Symphony Orchestra with special guest soloist Santiago Rodriguez, hailed as “one of the finest pianists in the world” by the Baltimore Sun. The live concert from the 600-seat capacity Gusman Concert Hall will be broadcast free, virtually to the public on You Tube in keeping with the school’s policy since the pandemic began.
Opening the program is the Frost Chamber Orchestra conducted by Maestro Schwarz performing suites from the 20th century by master composers Maurice Ravel and Richard Strauss. Ravel originally composed “Ma Mère l’oye” (Mother Goose) in 1908 and 1910 as a suite of four-hand piano pieces written for children of his friends Ida and Cipa Godebski. The suite has five movements—La pavane de la Belle au bois dormant was written in 1908 as Ravel’s father was dying and the other four movements were written in April 1910 with the premiere only days later. Richard Stauss’ Le Bourgeois Gentihomme suite was one of his own favorite scores, an absolute jewel of incidental music written for Moliere’s play of the same name that combines the composer’s romanticism with his love of the Baroque music.
The concert’s second half features The Frost Symphony Orchestra conducted by Maestro Schwarz performing Ludwig Von Beethoven’s The Leonore Overture No. 3. One of the most popular of orchestral showpieces, it is the most frequently programmed of the overtures Beethoven composed. Soloist Santiago Rodriguez will join the orchestra on piano for Beethoven’s Concerto No. 5, in E♭ major, Op. 73. Popularly known as the Emperor Concerto, it was his last completed piano concerto. It was written between 1809 and 1811 in Vienna, and was dedicated to Archduke Rudolf, Beethoven’s patron and pupil.
About Gerard Schwarz
Gerard Schwarz is Distinguished Professor of Music; Conducting and Orchestral Studies of the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami and Music Director of the Frost Symphony Orchestra.
Internationally recognized for his moving performances, innovative programming and extensive catalog of recordings, American conductor Gerard Schwarz serves as Music Director of the All-Star Orchestra, Eastern Music Festival, Palm Beach Symphony, and Mozart Orchestra of New York, and is Conductor Laureate of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and Conductor Emeritus of the Mostly Mozart Festival
His considerable discography of over 350 albums showcases his collaborations with some of the world’s greatest orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Tokyo Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, New York Chamber Symphony, and Seattle Symphony Orchestra among others. In 2017 The Gerard Schwarz Collection, a 30-CD box set of previously unreleased or limited release works spanning his entire recording career was released by Naxos.
In his nearly five decades as a respected classical musician and conductor, Schwarz has received hundreds of honors and accolades including Emmy Awards, GRAMMY nominations, ASCAP Awards, and the Ditson Conductor’s Award. He was the first American named Conductor of the Year by Musical America and has received numerous honorary doctorates. The City of Seattle named the street alongside the Benaroya Hall “Gerard Schwarz Place” in his honor. His book, Behind the Baton, was released by Amadeus Press in March 2017.
About Santiago Rodriguez
Santiago Rodriguez is Professor and Chair of the Keyboard Performance department at the Frost School of Music. Professor Rodriguez has been hailed as “a phenomenal pianist” by The New York Times and singled out as “among the finest pianists in the world” (according to The Baltimore Sun). Mr. Rodriguez has also been cited as one of today’s foremost interpreters of the music of Sergei Rachmaninov.
Rodriguez’s international credits include performances with the world’s leading orchestras — the London Symphony, the Dresden Staatskapelle, the Weimar Philharmonic, the Yomiuri-Nippon Symphony Orchestra of Japan, the Tampere Philharmonic of Finland, the Berliner Symphoniker, the Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, Baltimore, Seattle, Indianapolis, American Composers’, and Houston Symphony Orchestras, the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, D.C., and the American Symphony Orchestra.
Santiago Rodriguez’s talents have taken him all over the world — to Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall in New York, the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Montreal’s Theatre Maisonneuve, the Santander Festival in Spain, Schauspielhaus in Berlin, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus, the Herbst Theater in San Francisco, the Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena, to the prestigious Ravenna Festival in Italy, and concerts in Finland, China and Taiwan.
Mr. Rodriguez made his concert debut at age ten performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27 with the New Orleans Philharmonic. His international career was launched in 1981 when he won the Silver Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. He subsequently received a special prize for the best performance of Leonard Bernstein’s Touches, a work commissioned for the competition. Mr. Rodriguez’ unique life and artistry were profiled on CBS “Sunday Morning with Charles Kurault” in 1993. He has also been featured numerous times on the ABC, NBC, PBS, CNN, BBC, and CBC television networks.
PROGRAM
Saturday, February 20, 2021, 7:30 P.M.
The Bourgeois and the Emperor—Frost Orchestras
Gerard Schwarz, conductor
Santiago Rodriguez, piano
Frost Chamber Orchestra: (1st half)
Ravel: Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose Suite)
- Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant: Lent (Pavane of Sleeping Beauty)
- Petit Poucet: Très modéré (Little Tom Thumb / Hop-o’-My-Thumb)
- Laideronnette, impératrice des pagodes: Mouvt de marche (Little Ugly Girl, Empress of the Pagodas)
- Les entretiens de la belle et de la bête: Mouvt de valse très modéré (Conversation of Beauty and the Beast)
- Le jardin féerique: Lent et grave (The Fairy Garden)
Strauss: Le Bourgeois Gentihomme (The Bourgeois Gentleman Suite)
- Ouverture (Overture)
- Menuett (Minuet)
- Der Fechtmeister (The Fencing Master)
- Auftritt und Tanz der Schneider (Entry and Dance of the Tailors)
- Menuett des Lully (Lully’s Minuet)
- Courante
- Auftritt des Cléonte (Entry of Cléonte; after Lully)
- Vorspiel (Intermezzo)
- Das Diner (The Dinner)
Frost Symphony Orchestra: (2nd half)
Beethoven: Leonore Overture No 3
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No 5 – Santiago Rodriguez, Piano
- Allegro
- Adagio un pocco mosso
- Rondo:Allegro
About Frost Music Live!
The Frost School of Music at the University of Miami proudly launched its annual Frost Music Live Series in September 2017. The series offers more than 100 concerts each year, providing for people of all ages the chance to be enriched by live musical performances. It is unrivaled in its scope of musical presentations and contributions while expanding academic opportunities and cultural enrichment to all of South Florida and its visitors. The series features the Frost School of Music’s widely known artist-faculty and student ensembles, and world-renowned guest artists. Visit www.frostmusiclive.com for additional information.
About Frost School of Music
The Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music is one of the largest and most highly acclaimed music schools located in a private university in the U.S., and one of the most comprehensive and relevant in all of higher education. With over 700 students and 100 faculty members it is a top choice for instrumental, keyboard and vocal performance as well as composition, music business, music education, music engineering technology, music therapy, songwriting, jazz, studio music, and more. It is one of two schools created in 1926 when the University of Miami was founded. The naming gift from Dr. Phillip and Patricia Frost in 2003 was a historic occasion. Consistently named one of the Top 10 music schools by Billboard Magazine and The Hollywood Reporter among numerous other media outlets, The Frost School of Music seeks to transform lives through the study and performance of music, and to enhance music’s future as the result of the most innovative and relevant curricula in higher education. For further information, visit: www.frost.miami.edu. Follow us at @FrostSchoolU
