VSO premieres Bach, Agócs & Mozart with Timothy Steeves playing solo violin, May 2
The virtual performance also features Jane Coop on the orchestra’s stunning new Steinway concert grand piano
Violinist Timothy Steeves is Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s associate concertmaster.
Vancouver Symphony Orchestra premieres Bach, Agócs & Mozart on May 2 at 2 pm PDT via TheConcertHall.ca. The virtual performance will be available for streaming for the remainder of the season.
VANCOUVER SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA violinist and associate concertmaster Timothy Steeves takes on the role of soloist at the VSO’s newest streaming performance, Bach, Agócs & Mozart.
Premiering May 2, the concert features J.S. Bach’s Concerto for Violin in D Minor and Kati Agocs’s new Concerto for Violin and Percussion Orchestra. Plus, Jane Coop leads the orchestra in a performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 in A.
Steeves, who’s the founding violinist of the new music ensemble Latitude 49, has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and many other fine stages in North America and Europe. He’s not only a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral musician, but also an advocate of contemporary music, with a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Rice University plus a Bachelor and Master degree of music from the University of Michigan, among other educational achievements.
Bach’s Concerto in D minor is catalogued as Concerto No. 1 for Harpsichord, BWV 1052, leading some scholars to conclude it may have originated as an organ concerto. Others suspect its first incarnation was as a violin concerto, albeit one that was far too complex for most of the musicians of the day. According to the VSO, the only surviving manuscripts have provided clues, but no clear answers, to the composer’s original intentions.
Agócs, meanwhile, is a Guggenheim Fellow, Juno nominee, and recipient of the Arts and Letters Award (the lifetime achievement award in music composition from the American Academy of Arts and Letters). “From folk music of an imaginary culture to volatile spectralism, polytextual vocal ensembles to large symphonic forces, the music of Kati Agócs embraces the 21st-century orchestra in all of its protean possibilities,” reads her bio.
The American-Canadian composer’s Concerto for Violin and Percussion Orchestra, commissioned by the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University, was scored for solo violin and six percussionists.
Bach, Agócs & Mozart also features Vancouver pianist, Steinway artist, and Juno-nominee Jane Coop playing VSO’s stunning new Steinway concert grand piano as she leads an ensemble in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 in A.
“Because of COVID distancing, we used 11 players including me,” Coop tells Stir. “I personally arranged the full orchestra score for 10 instruments, and we played without a conductor. The result was a chamber version of a major piano concerto. The VSO musicians were wonderfully supportive and contributed highly to the sheer delight in the whole experience.”
More information is at TheConcertHall.ca.
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