The 20th anniversary year of the Dvořák Olomouc International Music Festival is approaching. It starts on 12 May and six concerts will bring top Czech and international artists to Olomouc. American jazzman Uri Caine will also perform.
The jazz pianist and composer will play his composition Nein! for piano and orchestra in Olomouc, based on Ludwig van Beethoven’s famous Ninth Symphony. He will be accompanied by the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra Olomouc under the direction of the British conductor David Robert Coleman.
“We are honoured to welcome two great musicians – a jazz pianist and a conductor – who are united by their compositional activity. Olomouc audiences can look forward to an attractive fusion of classical and jazz from the pen of Uri Cain, which will undoubtedly also reflect the great personal contribution of conductor David Robert Coleman,” adds Jonáš Harman, director of the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra, on the opening concert.
The composition Nein! was written in honour of the recent 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth and draws on the musical material of the last movement of his monumental Ninth Symphony. From Beethoven’s musical motifs and melodies, Caine has created the basis for a new composition that also features piano improvisation. “Sometimes I rework Beethoven’s music rhythmically and harmonically – and sometimes the music is a paraphrase of the original with room for improvisation,” the composer says of his compositional approach. Uri Caine will follow Nein! with his version of Beethoven’s Variations on a Diabelli Waltz. The arrangement was commissioned in 2001 for a music festival in Kempen, Germany.
The concert starts at 7 pm in the Reduta. The Moravian Philharmonic, as the festival organiser, has also prepared a discussion with the artists, which will take place one hour before the concert in the Mozart Hall.
Information about tickets and the programme of other concerts is available at www.dvorakovaolomouc.cz
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