TSO one-night-only classic concert special—Hilary Hahn

Grammy Award-winning violin virtuoso Hilary Hahn will make her debut with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra in a one-night-only Classic Concert special, “Hilary Hahn and pictures!” Tuesday, March 6, at 8 p.m. at the Tucson Music Hall.

Music Director and Conductor George Hanson will lead Hahn and the TSO in a performance of the Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47 by Jean Sibelius. The program will open with Sibelius’ Finlandia and conclude with Modest Mussorgsky’s popular “Pictures at an Exhibition,” orchestrated by Maurice Ravel.

Tickets are on sale online at www.tucsonsymphony.org; at Ticketmaster (520) 321-1000; at the Tucson Symphony Orchestra box office, 2175 N. Sixth Avenue or via credit card phone order at 520-882-8585. TSO Box Office hours are Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Groups of 10 or more may be eligible for special discounts for selected concerts and seating areas. For information, please call 520-792-9155 ext.125.

Hahn, 26, is said to be one of the most compelling artists on the international concert circuit.

She was named “America’s Best” young classical musician by Time Magazine in 2001, and appears on a regular basis with the world’s great orchestras in Europe, Asia, and North America.

Sibelius’ Violin Concerto is among the most-recorded violin concertos of the 20th century. Exceedingly virtuosic, since Jascha Haifetz popularized it in the 1930s, it has attained an equivalent stature to other great Romantic-era violin concertos of Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky.

Primarily renowned for his seven symphonies and myriad tone poems, the Violin Concerto is Sibelius’ only concerto. It was completed in 1904 and premiered in a concert conducted by Richard Strauss. Sibelius’ signature sound depicts the exotic weather of his native land. The clash of polar and tropical air masses causes rapidly changing weather conditions.

Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” is a musical virtual tour and tour de force through a collection of works by Viktor Hartmann, an artist who died at the age of 39. Originally a virtuosic suite for solo piano, the music’s imaginative imagery has prompted several arrangements for various kinds of ensembles. Maurice Ravel was commissioned by Serge Koussevitsky to rework the piece for orchestra. The score includes several exotic percussion instruments, like ratchet, slapstick and celesta, plus the full complement expected of a modern percussion section: tam-tam, xylophone, glockenspiel and chimes.

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