The Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra invites you on 23 October 2021 at 7.30 p.m. to a concert-celebration! The Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the NOSPR, Lawrence Foster, celebrates his 80th birthday that day. The star of his birthday concert will be the legendary pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim, who will perform for the first time as a soloist with a Polish orchestra.
“Daniel Barenboim is, in my opinion, the greatest living musician. Whether he conducts, or plays the piano, or teaches, or finally gives speeches, he is the greatest and there is no dispute about it,” says Maestro Foster about the soloist of his birthday concert. We will hear Barenboim in the beloved, dramatic-virtuoso Concerto in C minor by Ludwig van Beethoven.
The remaining items of the programme were also selected based on the closest musical friendships of the Artistic Director of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra. The concert will be opened by The Awakening of Jacob by Krzysztof Penderecki, who greatly contributed to Lawrence Foster becoming the head of the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra. It was Maestro Penderecki who first called Foster to offer him the position of Artistic Director of the NOSPR. The American conductor was chosen by the orchestra itself. It was no coincidence that he selected The Awakening of Jacob – the work was premiered in 1974 in Monte Carlo under the baton of Stanisław Skrowaczewski by the Orchester National de l'Opéra de Monte-Carlo. Foster was associated with this orchestra for 14 years.
At the end, we will hear compositions reminiscent of one of the homelands of the main character of the evening –Romanian Rhapsodies by George Enescu. Foster, the son of Romanian immigrants raised in sunny Los Angeles, visited his parents' country for the first time as a 26-year-old. He fell in love with this country and is closely associated with it to this day, also as a tireless promoter of the work of the greatest Romanian composer, George Enescu.
The Honorary Patron of the concert is the Embassy of Romania in the Republic of Poland.
Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.
Tickets: https://nospr.org.pl/pl/kalendarz/daniel-barenboim-lawrence-foster-nospr-koncert-z-okazji-80-r