ASYO Finale Concert

This finale of the ASYO season will show exactly how far these talented young musicians have come this season under ASYO Music Director Jerry Hou's direction. The program includes two pieces featuring our Concerto Competition winners.

The performance begins with Bizet's masterful Carmen Suite No. 1. The opening prelude introduces the ominous theme associated with both Carmen and her fate at the hands of her lover, Don Jose. The following aragonaise (a dance from the region of Aragon in Spain) is the festive yet sinuous music that opens the final act of the opera as crowds arrive for a parade outside the bullring. An intermezzo, a serenely melancholic section based on the prelude to the final act, leads to a seguiedille that Carmen sings to seduce Jose. The suite ends with a jaunty military march, "Les Dragons d'Alcala," followed by the famous march "Les Toreadores," the entry of the bullfighters, which is actually the opening piece of the opera.

Then the ASYO's own cellist Jonathan Fuller performs the fourth movement of Elgar's contemplative Cello Concerto in E minor which was written following World War I and has become a cornerstone of solo cello repertoire. Then ASYO violinist Tobias Liu performs the first movement of Sibelius' only concerto, the symphonic Violin Concerto in D minor which features all sections of the orchestra equally.

Closing the concert and the 2021/22 ASYO season is Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, which Mussorgsky wrote as an homage to his friend, artist Victor Hartmann, and are a series of musical depictions of ten watercolor canvases.

As the number of COVID-19 cases continues to decline, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Atlanta Symphony Hall LIVE will no longer require patrons to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test for most events in Symphony Hall. In addition, masks will be encouraged, but no longer required. More details are available on our Health & Safety page.