North Carolina Symphony presents 'Mozart & Beethoven'

The music of Mozart, Beethoven and a North Carolina composer come together under Memorial Hall’s roof today when the North Carolina Symphony presents “Mozart & Beethoven.”

Joe Newberry, director of communications for the symphony, said he is excited to present renowned masters of music alongside a piece by North Carolina conductor Kenneth Frazelle.

“One of the things about featuring a concert of Mozart and Beethoven is that those are standards of the classical repertoire, but what we’ve also done is we have a guest artist, Jeffrey Kahane, and he is going to be playing piano and conducting, which is always cool to see somebody come off the podium and go to the piano,” Newberry said.

Jeffrey Kahane, the concert’s conductor and pianist and music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, said this is his third time with the symphony, and he is very comfortable conducting the orchestra from the piano during Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 because he has been doing it for about 25 years. Kahane said the orchestra enjoys it because it makes them feel like they are all playing together rather than being directed by a conductor, which he is doing in the two other pieces.

“Actually, in the time of Mozart, when this piece was written, there were no conductors in the way we think of them,” he said. “People didn’t stand up in front of orchestras with a baton or wave their arms. They actually were always leading and playing an instrument at the same time.”

In addition to the piano concerto, the concert’s program features a piece for oboe and strings called “Air,” the fourth movement from Concerto for Chamber Orchestra, by Frazelle, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2.

Kahane related the process of choosing the pieces for the concert to planning a meal.

“It’s very similar in the sense that you want to have the right amount of something and not too much of anything, and you want things that contrast with each other but don’t completely contrast too violently, just like you wouldn’t put chocolate ice cream on a plate with steak,” Kahane said.

He said he thought the three pieces fit well together and that the concert has many different moods to it, ranging from sad and melancholy to happy and hilarious.

Karen Galvin, assistant concertmaster first violin, said she is most excited about performing Beethoven’s Second Symphony, which happens to be one of her favorite pieces.

“It’s completely virtuosic, though it’s tough, but it has this Beethoven language that’s super exciting and fun to play as much as it is fun to listen to,” she said.

Galvin said the concert is unique because of Kahane’s role as both a conductor and a soloist.

“He’s playing the Mozart piano concerto and conducting from the seat, so the piano is actually set up inside the orchestra with its lid completely off,” she said. “His back is to the audience; he faces the orchestra, and by nonverbal communications, whether he can actually use his hands or through eye contact and head nods, he leads the orchestra through the piano concerto.”

Galvin said she hopes that audiences see the North Carolina Symphony as an orchestra that is completely committed to performing exciting music to the highest level.

“It’s a group of musicians that’s incredibly passionate about what we do and playing with each other,” Galvin said. “It’s a unique opportunity having a guest conductor for audiences to hear new interpretations. It’s the same orchestra that they are used to seeing on stage, but they get to hear it in a new light based on what the maestro is doing at the front.”

arts@dailytarheel.com