OPENING FIREWORKS: Albany Symphony Orchestra opens season with Fire

ALBANY — The Albany Symphony Orchestra is looking to get its 2014-15 season off to a blazing start Saturday evening at the Albany Municipal Auditorium with the “Fire” portion of its “Brave the Elements” theme.

“It’s our opening concert of the year, and the year is designed to outline the four basic elements,” symphony Music Director Claire Fox Hillard said. It’s a way to organize the music that we might ordinarily play — one around fire, one around air, and then the water and the earth.”

Hillard said the 7:30 p.m. concert will feature two “fire-related” pieces, but said the real “fireworks” will come from the fingers of guest Steinway Artist Kadisha Onabayeva, who will perform on the Albany Municipal Auditorium’s Steinway D, a 9-foot concert grand piano.

The concert will have “lots of pieces with fire in the title, pieces about fire, but then we also have a virtuoso pianist coming who really brings ‘fireworks’ to the keyboard,” he said, “so I thought it was a good way to start off the year with the big Steinway down at the auditorium that we’re so proud of.”

Hillard said the Albany Steinway is “a local treasure. I just wish it had an opportunity to be played more, because instruments like to be played. We’re fortunate to have it.”

And Onabayeva has the credentials. A pianist since age 5, she’s the first pianist from Kazakhstan to be named a Steinway Artist. She’ll perform Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1.

The symphony will perform Spanish-favored Suite from Manuel de Falla’s El amor brujo (Love, the Magician), which includes his “Ritual Fire Dance,” and Hungarian pianist/composer Franz Liszt’s Symphonic Poem No. 5. The latter work tells the dramatic story, in music, of Prometheus — the Greek god who gave fire to humans and is punished for his act by being chained to a rock.

“The ‘Ritual Fire Dance,’ people may not know the name of it, but they’ve certainly heard it before,” Hillard said. “People that love the piano certainly know the major tunes from the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto.”

Onalbayeva attended the Jubanov Special School for Talented Children in Almaty, Kazakhstan, then entered the Kurmangazy National Conservatory of Music after graduation. She received a Soros Prize for her work in development of international cultural exchanges and earned two master of music degrees in composition and piano performance at the University of New Orleans before earning a Doctor of Musical Arts in piano performance at Louisiana State University.

Throughout her career, according to biographical information provided by the ASO, Onalbayeva has been a strong supporter of new music and she has been particularly interested in introducing the music of Kazakhstan to the United States. She has continued performances of her music and has participated in international new music festivals as composer, performer and organizer throughout Central Asia, Austria, England, Kazakhstan, Russia and Uzbekistan.

While in the U.S. she has participated in new music activities and performances as a piano soloist and chamber musician in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida and Chicago. Currently on the faculties at the University of Mobile and Pensacola State College, she is also founder, co-director and pianist of the chamber ensemble The Gulf Coast Virtuosi. She serves as president of the Gulf Coast Steinway Society. As a composer Onalbayeva was recently commissioned to write a symphonic poem titled Zherym (My Motherland), which was premiered in May 2014 by the Kazakhstan National Orchestra.

The symphony also is creating some outreach with its performances this season. Saturday’s concert will promote awareness about both breast cancer and domestic violence.

Hillard said the promotions at the concerts are a way of “integrating ourselves in the community in non-musical ways as well.”

Tickets sales “are doing well and, I think, we’re picking up steam,” Hillard said. “We’re starting (the season) a little bit later in the year than we normally do, and some people are asking, ‘Where’s the symphony?’ We’ve had a lot of interest just recently. And I think the theme has piqued some people’s interest as well.”

Tickets for the concert range from $15 to $30 for adults and $10 for students. Senior citizen and military discounts available. Season tickets for all four subscription concerts also are available at a savings over single ticket prices.

Contact the Albany Symphony offices at 229.430.8933 or visit www.albanysymphony.org.