Home > Victor Vener and His California Philharmonic Reel Audiences in with Movie Masterpieces | Crown City News

News & Press

Victor Vener and His California Philharmonic Reel Audiences in with Movie Masterpieces | Crown City News

Posted:February, 20 2015

Movie Masterpieces, one of the most-anticipated concerts of California Philharmonic’s 2014 summer season, premieres this weekend, Saturday August 9 at Santa Anita Race Track and Sunday August 10 at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Virtuoso violinist Elizabeth Pitcairn will bring The Red Violin to life on the actual instrument that inspired the 1998 drama, which follows the 300-year-journey of a violin crafted in 1861 in Cremola, Italy. Pitcairn’s performance on Sunday August 10 will mark her long-awaited Walt Disney Concert Hall debut.

“From the first moment I plucked the strings at Christie’s Auction House at age 16, it has been a passionate partnership,” said Pitcairn of the 24-year-old bond she shares with the renowned instrument that she nicknamed “Felix” after the great composer Felix Mendelssohn and describes as a masculine entity with the soul of a woman. “I have been dreaming of this moment, to finally hear the sound of one of the world’s acoustical marvels complimented by the perfectly designed acoustical space which is Disney Concert Hall.”

While Sunday marks a first for Pitcairn, it is not the first time she has collaborated with the esteemed Maestro Victor Vener.

“Before the music was even published, Maestro Victor Vener, with incredible vision and foresight, invited me to perform Academy Award winning composer John Corigliano’s The Red Violin: Chaconne For Violin And Orchestra with him in the year 2000. It holds its place in history as the Southern California debut of that score. We played for an audience of 5000. They went nuts at the end,” continued Pitcairn, the third violinist in the world to perform the piece at that time. “I admire Maestro Vener greatly, especially for his gift to the world in bringing music to so many.”

“When I play the Chaconne, it has a haunting quality, and in that moment I feel the violin is speaking, and my skin prickles all over,” shared Pitcairn. “I’m sure the audience will feel it too at Walt Disney Concert Hall on August 10th.”

Movie Masterpieces also features music from such blockbusters as Pirates of the Caribbean, Titanic, Star Trek and Game of Thrones as well as selections from Frozen, featuring soloist Tara Alexander singing ‘For the First Time in Forever’ and ‘Let It Go.’

What’s more, Vener and the orchestra will be performing pacific vistas, a work composed for Cal Phil by its resident composer, rogerallenward, who notes “The piece is like a miniature movie of Los Angeles, with scenes at Venice Beach, Pasadena and the Hollywood hills.”

Audiences throughout Southern California have options to attend extremely different experiences of Cal Phil’s one-of-a-kind concerts at two iconic venues; every other Saturday evening at Santa Anita Race Track on the infield with the beautiful unobstructed backdrop of the San Gabriel Mountains or Sunday matinees at Los Angeles’ most vaunted music destination, the incomparable Walt Disney Concert Hall.

To purchase tickets to attend California Philharmonic concerts at Santa Anita Race Track, call 626.304.0333 or www.calphil.com.

Tickets for Walt Disney Concert Hall are available for purchase through Ticketmaster or at 800.745.3000.

Source Beacon Media News