Above: Bella Hristova (Photo by Lisa Marie Mazzucco)
By David Whitehill, Executive Director
Celebrated violinist Bella Hristova will appear with the Asheville Symphony Orchestra on Saturday, February 13, when she takes on Beethoven’s beloved Violin Concerto in an ASO Masterworks concert at Thomas Wolfe Auditorium. She is stepping in to replace Stefan Jackiw, who was originally scheduled to perform, but had to withdraw, with regret, for personal reasons.
Asheville Symphony music director Daniel Meyer will conduct the 8 p.m. concert, which also includes Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture and Strauss’ Metamorphosen.<–ITALS
“We’re excited to have Bella Hristova make her ASO debut with Beethoven’s bold and brilliant Violin Concerto,” Meyer said. “A concerto of symphonic proportions, Beethoven’s single entry into the genre remains at the pinnacle of music ever written for the instrument, and this will be an opportunity to hear a great concerto performed by a shooting star.”
Acclaimed for her passionate and powerful performances, beautiful sound, and compelling command of her instrument, Hristova was recently recognized with a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, awarded to outstanding instrumentalists and based on excellence alone. The Washington Post’s “The Classical Beat” stated that she is “a player of impressive power and control.”
The Mendelssohn and Strauss works will be performed during the first half of the concert. Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, subtitled Fingal’s Cave, musically captures the composer’s visit to and impressions of this special archipelago in Scotland
Crushed by the demise of Germany and its storied cultural history, Strauss composed an elegiac and deeply stirring work for twenty-three solo musicians called Metamorphosen. ITALS With its arching, spun lines of intertwined strings and a wistful nod to the funeral march from Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, Metamorphosen ITALS aches for a bygone era of serious but deeply Romantic music.
Single tickets for Beethoven’s Violin Concerto are $22–62 depending on seating section, and reduced youth pricing is available. Single tickets and season ticket packages can be purchased at ashevillesymphony.org, by calling 828.254.7046, or in person at the U.S. Cellular Center box office at 87 Haywood Street.
