In Sunday’s (2/23) Arizona Star, Cathalena Burch writes, “George Hanson introduced himself to Tucson 20 years ago with Schumann’s Symphony No. 2. On March 7, at his second-to-last concert as [Tucson Symphony Orchestra] music director, it will be his farewell ode and a piece that draws the line between his 19 seasons with the orchestra and his new life in Leipzig, Germany. He and his family have settled into an apartment blocks away from those of Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn. ‘Every piece on the [2014-15] season has a special meaning connected to my time here,’ Hanson said.” Repertoire will include Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F featuring Alain Lefèvre, with whom the TSO recorded André Mathieu’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in 2008; “On the Town: Three Dance Episodes” by Leonard Bernstein, who was “a mentor to Hanson”; and Copland’s Symphony No. 3, whose fourth movement (“Fanfare for the Common Man”) the TSO performed at a memorial service three days after the Jan. 8, 2011 mass shootings in Tucson. “Hanson’s crowning jewel of next season” (Mahler Third Symphony) “will be his final turn at the podium with the TSO.” The March 2015 concerts will be the 85-year-old orchestra’s first performances of the work.
Posted February 26, 2014
