Mendelssohn's Double Concerto

This week, Music Director Laureate Robert Spano spotlights astonishing musical families with a Double Concerto written by a 14-year-old. Both Felix and sister Fanny Mendelssohn were prodigies who gave fabulous recitals in the family home. Standing in for the Mendelssohn sibs, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra presents the acclaimed brother-sister duo Julie and David Coucheron, the Orchestra’s concertmaster.

The program opens with Felix Mendelssohn's first orchestral masterpiece, the Overture from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Spano skips ahead to the 21st century for the world premiere of "Concerto for Body" by Emmy-winning American composer Adam Schoenberg, the product of yet another musical family. In his new piece, Schoenberg uses the instruments of the orchestra to explore the relationship between "the individual body and the collective consciousness."