Lilya Zilberstein
DOHA: Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra ends the season on a high note performing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one of the great icons of Western music, at a sold-out concert tonight at Katara Opera House.
The concert under the baton conductor of honor Dmitrij Kitajenko featuring Lilya Zilberstein on piano will open with Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, one of Mozart’s most important works.
Born in Salzburg, Austria, Mozart was a very young musical prodigy who began composing music at age 11. Though his illustrious career was cut short by his sudden death at age 35, he left some 600 compositions which included Symphony No. 40.
One of the only two symphonies composed by Mozart in minor keys, Symphony No. 40, written in four parts, remains an icon of Classical music and his most-performed symphonic work.
Following Mozart’s Symphony No.40, Qatar Philharmonic will play Piano Concerto in A Minor, which is one of the most popular works by Norwegian composer and pianist Edvard Grieg known as “Chopin of the North.”
Piano Concerto in A Minor, whose final version was completed only a few weeks before Grieg’s death, stands among the most popular of all piano concerti.
The concert culminates with Three Movements from Spartacus Suites 1 and 2 by Armenia’s foremost composer Aram Khachaturian. The only major compositional success in the three decades of his life, Khachaturian’ Spartacus is a ballet based on the gladiator, who was one of the escaped slaves who led a 1st-Century BCE slave rebellion.
Tonight’s soloist Lilya Zilberstein is one of the finest pianists in the world who won First Prize in the 1987 Busoni International Piano Competition1998 as well as emerged Prizewinner of the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy. She is an in demand soloist, chamber musician, and teacher who became the first woman to chair the classical piano department at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna.
Considered one of the great conductors of our time, Kitajenko is equally esteemed in eastern and western Europe. He regularly conducts prestigious orchestras like the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. In September 2015, he was named Conductor of Honor of the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra.
