by Stephanie Manning
When Moonhee Kim’s violin teacher said he wanted her to learn the Prokofiev Violin Concerto, she was hoping he would say the second one. Of the composer’s two concerti for the instrument, No. 2 is more commonly performed, and it was the one Kim was most familiar with. But Concerto No. 1 was what he had in mind — and as it turns out, that was the perfect choice.
On Sunday, May 8 at Severance Music Center, Kim will perform Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra under the direction of Vinay Parameswaran. The 7:00 pm program will also feature Reena Esmail’s She Will Transform You, Mendelssohn’s Verleih uns Frieden, and Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. Tickets are available online.
“I can’t imagine doing a different concerto for this performance, because it’s become one of my favorite pieces that I’ve ever played,” Kim said in a recent phone interview. “The more I talk about No. 1, the more I hear things like, ‘Oh, I heard that concerto for the first time the other day, and I fell in love with it immediately.’ Even though Prokofiev 2 is so much more accessible, I think there’s this appeal to the first one that really draws people in.”
Over the years, audiences have had the privilege of hearing many outstanding performances by winners of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra’s annual concerto competition. But on Sunday, February 20, the sizable crowd at Severance Music Center witnessed nothing short of musical magic during Dasara Beta’s brilliant performance of Alexander Arutiunian’s Trumpet Concerto.
Think of works for trumpet and orchestra, and two pieces immediately come to mind. “When I tell someone that I’m playing a concerto, they always say — are you playing Haydn or Hummel?” Dasara Beta said during a recent telephone conversation. “This is a pretty popular piece for trumpet players, but if you don’t play the trumpet, you might not know it.”
After a long hiatus, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra is back in full swing. “I’m so excited,” COYO music director Vinay Parameswaran said during a recent telephone conversation. “I couldn’t wait to be back in our beautiful hall with the young musicians — we’ve all been waiting for this for way too long.”
It came as no surprise that the March 1 Severance Hall concert by the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra Youth Chorus was an excellent affair. Leading fine performances of music mostly off the beaten track, conductor Vinay Parameswaran helped prove that gloomy predictions of classical music performance fading into oblivion are misplaced. The audience was large and enthusiastic — I suspect with many rightfully proud family members.
From June 12 through June 19 The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra will make a seven day, four concert tour to Europe under the direction of Vinay Parameswaran.