“The stories told in paintings are musically expressed in Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition,’ and now the suite has been splashed with the colors of jazz,” writes Leeta-Rose Ballester in Wednesday’s (6/1) Mercury News (California). “The San Jose Youth Symphony Philharmonic Orchestra performs composer and musician Yaron Gottfried’s jazz-and-orchestra reboot of the Russian piano classic on June 10 at the California Theatre.… Though the world premiere of the 12-movement suite was in 2011, this is the first time a youth orchestra will undertake it.… ‘The idea of bringing the original work by Mussorgsky mixed and reinvented with jazz percolated in my mind for few years,’ [Gottfried] said.… Yair Samet, music director and conductor of San Jose Youth Symphony Philharmonic Orchestra, said younger musicians are often more open to trying innovative things. ‘When you’re with kids, it brings a freshness of ideas,’ he said. ‘There’s always an electricity.’ Samet will lead the 112-piece youth orchestra in performing the suite with [a] jazz trio, as well as” works by Sviridov, Gavrilin, and Shostakovich. “San Jose Youth Symphony was founded in 1951 as part of the former San Jose Symphony; in 2001 it reformed as an independent, nonprofit organization.”
Posted June 6, 2016
