June 14, 2008
Beethoven and Beyond
Katia Popov, violin
Brilliance and power are not often found together. On this night you’ll experience them both, again and again.
DAUGHERTY
BEETHOVEN
BEETHOVEN
Fire & Blood*
Egmont Overture
Symphony No. 7
Katia was born in Sofia, Bulgaria. Her talent, even at age 4, put the world on notice for the ability she would bring to almost every facet of classical music. She has garnered countless awards in competitions, been invited to perform internationally with the most prestigious orchestras and has recorded more than 400 Motion Picture Scores. Katia is the LBSO’s principal second violin.
Programs are listed in concert order, but are subject to change.
All concerts begin at 8 pm in the Terrace Theater, Long Beach Performing Arts Center.
All concerts conducted by Music Director Enrique Arturo Diemecke
Gregorio Luke is the former consul for the Cultural Institute of Mexico in Los Angeles; deputy director of the Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington, D.C.; and first secretary of the Embassy of Mexico in Washington, D.C. He has organized exhibits, concerts, lectures, book and film festivals, and seminars. He's also lectured extensively on Mexican art in museums and universities in Mexico, Europe and the U.S.
From 1999 to 2007 Mr. Luke was director of the Museum of Latin American Art (MoLAA). He continues to apply his wealth of experience to lead and administer the cultural programming of the museum and regularly lectures around the world on Latin American cultural subject matters and personalities. For his tireless contributions to the cultural enrichment of the community in Long Beach, he was recently honored with the Nuestra Imagen Awards from the Community Hispanic Association.
At the June 14 concert, Mr. Luke will speak for a few minutes about the famed Detroit Industry mural, which inspired Michael Daughtery to compose the violin concerto Fire & Blood.
By Enrique Arturo Diemecke
Beethoven
This final concert of our 73rd season pairs Beethoven with two unlikely friends—the Mexican Moncayo and the young American Michael Daugherty. But there is a unifying theme of power and brilliance that connects all these works and promises to make this one of the most energetic concerts you have ever experienced.
Beethoven’s seventh symphony is all about the dance. Each movement is propelled by persistent motor rhythms that hammer away until great climaxes are reached. At the world premiere, conducted by an almost completely deaf Beethoven, the second movement so astonished the audience that they demanded its encore, even before
Michael Daugherty’s Fire & Blood is a violin concerto that will feature the LBSO’s great Principal Second Violin Katia Popov. Katia is from Bulgaria and studied in Paris before coming to Southern California to conclude her Doctoral studies at UCLA. This concerto is based on Diego Rivera’s murals in the Detroit Museum of Art. Rivera described his murals as a depiction of "towering blast furnaces, serpentine conveyor belts, impressive scientific laboratories, busy assembly rooms and all the men who worked them all." Rivera ‘s mural is an ode to the machine age and the liberation of the worker by technology.