January 12, 2006

Music Director Ignat Solzhenitsyn leads The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia in program featuring symphonies by Haydn and Schubert on Sunday, January 29 at 2:30 PM and Monday, January 30 at 7:30 PM in the Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center.

The program opens with Haydn's Symphony No. 100 in G Major, "Military," from the composer's "London" period. One British critic, overwhelmed by the symphony at its premiere, declared "the rapture it gave cannot be communicated by words, to be known it must be heard."

Franz Schubert's Symphony in C Major, D. 944, "Great," concludes the program. Originally lost for eleven years following the composer's death, it was discovered by Robert Schumann while searching through Schubert's archives, and was premiered three months later by Felix Mendelssohn leading the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

"I am proud to showcase our Orchestra in Haydn's mercurial '100,' as well as in one of the seminal masterpieces of Western Civilization: Schubert's cataclysmic 'Great' Symphony," Maestro Solzhenitsyn said.

The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia with Ignat Solzhenitsyn, conductor, perform a Sunday matinee at 2:30 on January 29th and Monday evening, January 30th at 7:30 in the Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center.

The Sunday matinee performance will be followed by "Classical Conversations," a brief question-and-answer session with Maestro Solzhenitsyn.

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