Zukermania Hits Overture Hall

Legendary violinist-conductor headlines Madison Symphony Orchestra's January 26-27-28 concerts - Pinchas Zukerman is, quite simply, one of the most popular and thrilling artists on the concert stage today.

He wields both bow and baton in a rare "play/conduct" engagement with the Madison Symphony
Orchestra (MSO) on Friday, January 26 at 7:30 PM; Saturday, January 27 at 8:00 PM and Sunday,
January 28 at 2:30 PM in Overture Hall, 201 State Street.

Single tickets are $12-$68 plus a $3 per ticket Overture Center facility fee. Senior citizens aged 62 or older, full-time students and groups also receive discounts, with an $11 student rush offered for all
three performances (limit two tickets; subject to availability). Discounts cannot be combined.

The Israeli-born Zukerman is renowned throughout the world for his accomplishments as a conductor,
violinist, violist and pedagogue. Currently the Music Director for Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra,
the 21-time Grammy nominee regularly conducts and performs with the world's great orchestras.

As soloist, Zukerman's gorgeous tone will shine forth in Johann Sebastian Bach's timeless Violin
Concerto No. 1. Bach's concerto dates from the early 1700s, when he joined the musicians at the court of
Anhalt-Cöthen in Germany. The prince of the court was a true music-lover and Bach found himself amidst a wealth of instrumentalists. His fellow musicians may have inspired the composer-much of his orchestral music, including the famed Brandenburg concerti and orchestral suites, date from this period, as does the violin concerto performed at these concerts.

As conductor, Zukerman will lead the MSO in the operatic drama of Carl Maria von Weber's Overture
to Der Freischütz (the Free-shooters). Based on a popular German ghost tale, the work is a landmark in the history of German Romanticism. The concerts conclude with Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's lush and poignant Symphony No 4. Written during a tumultuous period in the composer's life, the symphony explores the theme of Fate, which Tchaikovsky described to a close friend as, "the inevitable force which halts our aspirations toward happiness." He went on to say in the same letter, "Most assuredly, my symphony has a program, but one that cannot be expressed in words; the very attempt would be ludicrous...shouldn't a symphony reveal those wordless urges that hide in the heart, asking earnestly for expression?"

By www.madisonsymphony.org