Among America’s most compelling musical ensembles, The Philadelphia Orchestra continues its four-concert residency under Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin at the 2022 International Festival with a concert of brilliant colours and intoxicating rhythms, showcasing the Orchestra’s remarkable breadth of music making.

At its premiere in 1932, Florence Price’s First Symphony was the first piece by a Black woman composer to be performed by a major US orchestra. It’s been unfairly overlooked since then, but Nézet-Séguin and The Philadelphia Orchestra have been among its ardent champions in recent years, bringing its blazing melodies, jazzy wit and beguiling mix of Dvořák-like earthiness and African rhythms back to vivid life.

Brilliant Georgian-born violinist Lisa Batiashvili is the soloist in the seductively perfumed lyricism of Szymanowski’s sumptuous First Violin Concerto, a deeply personal work of unbridled sensuality.

They open the concert amid the captivating folk music and breath-taking geography of South America, where The Philadelphia Orchestra composer in residence Gabriela Lena Frank conjures Latin panpipes and percussion from the orchestra in her vibrant An Andean Walkabout.

Supported by
Dunard Fund

With additional support from
Québec Government Office in London