Seattle Symphony Concertmaster Maria Larionoff will lead the Orchestra in three performances of Vivaldi's ever-popular "Four Seasons," and will be featured as soloist in J.S. Bach's Violin Concerto No. 2 in E major. Also on the program, Seattle Symphony Principal Second Violin Elisa Barston will join Larionoff in J.S. Bach's Concerto for Two Violins in D minor.
Performances will take place Thursday, May 1, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, May 2, at 8 p.m.; and Saturday, May 3, at 8 p.m. There will be a Musically Speaking concert on Sunday, May 4, at 2 p.m. that will include commentary from the podium by Larionoff and will not include J.S. Bach's Concerto for Two Violins.
The San Francisco Chronicle recognized Maria Larionoff as "an outstanding talent" and called her playing, "intoxicating in its brilliance." Larionoff has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony (as both soloist and Concertmaster), Orquesta Sinfónica Carlos Chávez in Mexico City, University of Washington Orchestra, Yakima and Port Angeles symphonies and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, as well as under many of the world's leading conductors, among them Rattle, Mehta, Boulez, Previn, Sanderling and Leinsdorf. Both a violinist and violist, she has performed at many chamber music festivals, including the Seattle Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Northwest, the International Music, Marrowstone and Mostly Mozart festivals.
A Loomis Scholarship Award winner at the prestigious Juilliard School, Larionoff was a student of Dorothy DeLay and, upon graduating, was invited by Carlo Maria Giulini to join the violin section of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In May 2002, Larionoff and her husband, University of Washington double bass professor Barry Lieberman, launched the immensely successful American String Project, a conductor-less string orchestra, comprised of concertmasters, professors and distinguished soloists from all over the world.
Critics say violinist Elisa Barston possesses a "glowing sound" and "technical aplomb" (The Strad). Currently Seattle Symphony's Principal Second Violin, Barston previously served as the Associate Concertmaster of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra for eight seasons, and as a first violin section member of the Cleveland Orchestra. As soloist and chamber musician, Barston has performed extensively throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia, appearing with the Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Taipei Symphony Orchestra, among others. In 1986, she made her European debut with the English Chamber Orchestra at the request of Sir Yehudi Menuhin.
Among her awards are the Jascha Heifetz Scholarship, the Starling Foundation Grant, top prizes at the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition (including the Audience Prize), First Prize at the Julius Stulberg Auditions, Grand Prize at the International Kingsville Young Performers' Competition and First Prize in the Seventeen-General Motors National Music Competition. Barston has been awarded first prizes in the Fischoff National Chamber Music, the Kuttner Quartet and Indiana University concerto competitions.
In Johann Sebastian Bach's Violin Concerto No. 2, two buoyant and bounding fast movements surround an especially expressive slow movement whose luxuriant lyricism celebrates the proto-Romantic side of the great Baroque master. Bach's Concerto in D minor for Two Violins also boasts an emotionally rich central slow movement, sandwiched between two emphatic and dramatic fast movements.
Antonio Vivaldi's,/b> set of four solo violin concertos, known collectively as "The Four Seasons," can be heard as an imaginative example of Baroque "program music," as well as an exhilarating demonstration of the violin's potential from the composer of some 230 solo concertos for that instrument. -- www.seattlesymphony.org
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