LSO: Summer Stravinsky Festival with Valery Gergiev

One of the undeniable highlights of the LSO’s 2011/12 season is right around the corner – a festival of five concerts, spread across three venues (the Barbican, LSO St Luke’s and Trafalgar Square), celebrating the many faces of composer Igor Stravinsky and led by one of the most powerful champions of Russian music today, LSO Principal Conductor Valery Gergiev. With repertoire ranging from the iconic Firebird and Rite of Spring to the hidden curiosities of Stravinsky's jazz miniatures, appearances from guests including Greek virtuoso violinist Leonidas Kavakos and actor Simon Callow, and the chance to choose your setting, this all-encompassing series promises something for everyone




Stravinsky is frequently cast against contemporaries Shostakovich and Prokofiev as an example of a somehow less inherently Russian creator: born in St Petersburg, his 60-year career saw him settle in Switzerland, France and finally the US, where he lived until his death in 1971. His music is, on the surface, similarly cosmopolitan. The early ballets for Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes – The Firebird, Petrushka and The Rite of Spring – and the Russian fairytale-based Renard plus The Soldier’s Tale form a loose ‘Russian’ period; Oedipus Rex and the Violin Concerto are part of his ‘neo-classical’ period which saw a return to the form, order and balance of the late 18th century, and reached an apex whilst the composer was in Paris. Then there is a body of serial works which developed post-1945, once Stravinsky had become a US citizen. But Gergiev insists that Stravinsky’s ‘Russianness’ did not simply cease to be when he left for the West, aged 28...


> Watch Valery Gergiev discuss Stravinsky
http://vimeo.com/21922333


> LSO mini documentary about The Rite of Spring
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dIq_sF1agI


Choral splendour & solo violin frolics
Fri 11 May 7.30pm Barbican
Mass | Violin Concerto in D | The Firebird – complete ballet
with Leonidas Kavakos violin & London Symphony Chorus


Free concert: Stravinsky live in Trafalgar Square
Sat 12 May 6.30pm Trafalgar Square
Fireworks | The Firebird – suite | The Rite of Spring
with Paul Rissmann presenter


Folk tales from Russia
Sun 13 May 7.30pm Barbican
Renard | The Soldier's Tale
with Simon Callow narrator & LSO Chamber Ensemble
PLUS 'Backstage Pass': free pre-concert talk for young people and their families:


The music that rocked the 20th century & neo-classical tragedy 
Tue 15 May 7.30pm Barbican
The Rite of Spring | Oedipus Rex


http://www.lso.co.uk/page/3688/Summer-Stravinsky-Festival-with-Valery-Gergiev