The Red Violin feat. Leonard Slatkin, Elina Vahala & Nashville Symphony: at Schermerhorn Symphony Center (Nashville, TN) Fri. March 15, 2013

The Red Violin feat. Leonard Slatkin, Elina Vahala & Nashville Symphony

SunTrust Classical Series

Nashville Scene Critic's Pick …

The Nashville Symphony Orchestra won its first three Grammy Awards under the direction of former music adviser Leonard Slatkin. This weekend, Slatkin returns to conduct a few of his specialties. One of them is contemporary American composer John Corigliano’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra “Red Violin.” Corigliano borrowed music from his 1998 Academy Award-winning score for The Red Violin to create this expansive four-movement concerto. Finnish violinist Elina Vähälä will perform the lush, prismatically beautiful score in Nashville. Slatkin will also conduct Sir Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations. That work’s theme and 14 variations paint vivid sonic portraits for the composer’s closest friends — Variation IX “Nimrod” may well be the most sumptuous orchestral music ever to emerge from England. España, Emmanuel Chabrier’s vivacious musical postcard from Spain, will round out the program.

—John Pitcher