JoAnn Falletta, music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and Andreas Delfs, music director of the Rochester Philharmonic, along with their orchestras’ concertmasters, will trade places at their orchestras for special programs.
In Sunday’s (10/26) Buffalo Rising (New York), Peter Hall writes, “The Buffalo Philharmonic … and the Rochester Philharmonic (RPO) are about 75 miles or 80 minutes away from each other, but, with their separate concert schedules, don’t often have the opportunity to ‘get together’ in any meaningful way until this weekend’s I-90 Swap (a.k.a. the New York State Thruway). This weekend, some musical VIPs of the BPO and RPO are ‘trading places.’ BPO Music Director/Conductor JoAnn Falletta along with the BPO’s Concertmaster Nikki Chooi traveled east to Rochester to conduct and solo in front of the Rochester Philharmonic … That RPO concert … includes Persian composer Behzad Ranjbaran’s hypnotic Concerto for Violin and Orchestra. Meanwhile… the RPO’s Music Director/Conductor Andreas Delfs along with the RPO’s Concertmaster Juliana Athayde have traveled west to Buffalo for [a] concert that features … a modern violin concerto with an intensely personal back story … Falletta explains: ‘Andreas Delfs had commissioned a violin concerto from composer Roberto Sierra in memory of Andreas’ young daughter who had passed away at the age of 23, and he was hoping to find other opportunities to perform this beautiful piece … I immediately invited him to bring the piece to Buffalo in a very welcome return to our podium.”
