The Grammy Award-winning Russian National Orchestra will open the 2019-2020 season of Abu Dhabi Classics on October 10, organisers have announced. The next edition will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of composer Ludwig van Beethoven, offering a number of performances including world-renowned orchestras and soloists, ballets and artists from the Arab World, alongside a variety of performing arts.
The Russian National Orchestra, who will perform on October 10 and 11 at the Cultural Foundation, Qasr Al Hosn, has a global reputation for its interpretations of Russian classical music, including the great symphonies and concertos by Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky. Under the baton of the legendary conductor, Grammy Award and European Cultural Award-winner Mikhail Pletnev, the orchestra will play a programme dedicated to Russian composers of the 19th and 20th centuries. They will be joined on stage by the winner of the 15th Tchaikovsky Piano Competition, the young French classical pianist Lucas Debargue.
On the first evening, Debargue will join the Russian National Orchestra in performing Shostakovich’s Concerto in C minor for Piano, Trumpet, and String Orchestra. On the second evening, the Orchestra and Debargue will interpret the immensely popular and inspiring Piano Concerto No 1 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Another highlight will be Tchaikovsky’s equally famous 5th Symphony, in which the composer, in the tradition of Beethoven, revisits the theme of fate.
Tickets, starting at Dh195 (Dh50 for students) are now available online. Doors open at 7pm.
