Concert Program

YO-YO MA
CELLO

DVORAK
Cello Concerto

JOHN WILLIAMS
Elegy for Cello and Orchestra

BRAHMS
Variations on a Theme by Haydn

CLINT NEEDHAM
Everyday Life

SPONSORED BY:

Marcia & Findlay Cockrell Rabbi Scott Shpeen Fenimore Asset Management Geraldine & Jerry Golub Charlotte and Charles Buchanan Alan P. Goldberg Carole Ju and David Rubin Lois and David Swawite Christine Standish and Chris Wilk

This performance is SOLD OUT!

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You won’t want to miss this concert.
Yo-Yo Ma, the most famous musician of the modern age, joins the Albany Symphony in a special, one-night-only performance featuring one of the greatest cello concertos of all time by Dvorak. Along with favorites by Brahms, the unforgettable music of film composer John Williams, and more – this will be a concert you’ll never forget. Tickets are going fast! Get yours today. You’ll thank yourself later.

Buy your tickets now!

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By Phone: 518.694.3300

Meet Yo-Yo Ma! Attend a special donor benefit event immediately following the show featuring spectacular wine, delicious appetizers and scrumptious desserts prepared by the famous Purnomo family ! Buy now >>

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From Music Director David Alan Miller

Yo-Yo Ma joins the orchestra for the greatest of all cello concertos, the Dvorak Concerto, from 1895.  In 1894, Dvorak was living in New York and heard the world premiere of the Cello Concerto No. 2 by Victor Herbert, principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic.  Until that time, Dvorak had believed it impossible to write a successful concerto for cello because of its rather low register.  Hearing Herbert's work convinced Dvorak that he could write a compelling work for cello and orchestra.  And what a work it is.  In addition to being a dramatic tour-de-force, the concerto evolved into an homage to Dvorak's sister-in-law, Josefina Cermakova, Dvorak's first love, now mortally ill.  The concerto is perhaps Dvorak's most personal and deeply felt work. 

In addition to the Dvorak, Yo-Yo Ma will play a poignant recent work by John Williams, his brief Elegy.  An early masterwork by Dvorak's great friend and colleague, Johannes Brahms, is also on the program.  His Variations on a Theme of Haydn, his first major purely orchestral masterpiece, is an absolutely ingenious, 18 minute long, set of variations on the "St. Anthony" Chorale.  Also on the program, a radiant, joyous world premiere composition by young American composer Clint Needham, "Everyday Life," celebrates the joys and travails of parenthood.