Classical Mystery Tour

The four musicians in Classical Mystery Tour look and sound just like The Beatles, but Classical Mystery Tour is more than just a rock concert. The full show presents some 30 Beatles tunes sung, played, and performed exactly as they were written. Hear “Penny Lane” with a live trumpet section; experience the beauty of “Yesterday” with an acoustic guitar and string quartet; enjoy the rock/classical blend on the hard edged “I Am the Walrus.” From early Beatles music on through the solo years, Classical Mystery Tour is the best of The Beatles like you’ve never heard them: totally live.

Completed in 1742, Messiah remains as Handel’s best known works.

This is a free concert for the community and is a gift of the Eleni Demos Robinson Endowment. No tickets are required and there is no reserved seating.

Classical Mystery Tour

The four musicians in Classical Mystery Tour look and sound just like The Beatles, but Classical Mystery Tour is more than just a rock concert. The full show presents some 30 Beatles tunes sung, played, and performed exactly as they were written. Hear “Penny Lane” with a live trumpet section; experience the beauty of “Yesterday” with an acoustic guitar and string quartet; enjoy the rock/classical blend on the hard edged “I Am the Walrus.” From early Beatles music on through the solo years, Classical Mystery Tour is the best of The Beatles like you’ve never heard them: totally live.

Schumann • Piano Concerto in A Minor

Grieg • Piano Concerto in A Minor

Pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi

The CSO opens this concert with Mendelssohn’s miracle from his teenage years, the overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Not the work of a young composer but of a fully developed master, this piece offers many challenges to the orchestral musicians and is almost a tone-poem in its scope and ambition.

Then the orchestra performs not one piano concerto, but two. World-renowned pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi joins the CSO to perform concertos by Schumann and Grieg. Antonio has made the music of Grieg into a personal specialty, having performed Grieg’s complete piano works. It will be interesting to perceive the inter-relatedness of the two concertos rarely performed on one concert.

Listen here to an excerpt from Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor, Allegro vivace: Schumann Piano Concerto

Listen here to an excerpt from Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor, Allegro molto moderato: Grieg Piano Concerto

Mozart • Violin Concerto No. 5, Turkish

Brahms • Symphony No. 2

Violinist Elena Urioste

Mozart’s Magic Flute overture, from the final year of his life in 1791, begins this concert. The CSO then performs his Violin Concerto No. 5 written for himself to play as violin soloist when he was only 19 in 1775. This work is elegant in its virtuosity and although generally sunny and buoyant, in a few passages it explores darker expressive harmonies and moods. Young violinist Elena Urioste returns after her sensational CSO debut in 2009.

Brahm’s Second Symphony has a tranquil, pastoral quality and it’s no wonder since the symphony was written the summer of 1877 in a beautiful village in the Austrian Alps. The warm sounds of the cello and French horn are featured throughout.

Listen here to an excerpt from Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 in A, “Turkish”: Mozart Violin Concerto

Grondahl • Trombone Concerto

Ravel • Bolero

Gershwin • Rhapsody in Blue

Gershwin • An American in Paris

Trombonist John Neurohr and Pianist Katie Mahan

This concert could be considered an international celebration with French composers Berlioz and Ravel, Danish composer Grondahl, and Gershwin the American.

Two of Gershwin’s most popular works, American in Paris and Rhapsody in Blue will be performed. Ravel’s Bolero is a real block buster that includes saxophones. Berlioz’s exuberant overture celebrates Carnival, influenced by his long stay in Rome; this overture includes a lively Italian saltarello dance as well as a slow, love duet. Danish composer Grondahl wrote his Trombone Concerto while living in Italy, lending the music a combination of expressive Italian singing and warmth with Danish coolness and musical angularity.

The CSO is pleased to present two guest artists this concert featuring a trombone concerto for the audience with soloist John Neurohr and a CSO debut with pianist Katie Mahan playing Rhapsody in Blue.

Listen here to an excerpt from Ravel’s Bolero: Bolero

Listen here to an excerpt from Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue: Rhapsody in Blue

Born and raised in Foggia, Italy, Antonio Pompa-Baldi first came to the U.S. in 1999 to participate in the Cleveland International Piano Competition. He won the First Prize, and, while fulfilling all the engagements that came with it, he and his wife, Italian pianist Emanuela Friscioni, decided to make Cleveland their home. A top prize winner at the 1998 Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition of Paris, France, Antonio Pompa-Baldi also won a silver medal at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, as well as the Award for the Best Performance of a New Work.

Mr. Pompa-Baldi has toured extensively in four continents, bringing his assured touch on the keyboard to some of the world’s major concert venues including Cleveland’s Severance Hall, Milan’s Sala Verdi, Naples’ Teatro Diana, New York’s Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall, and Paris’ Salle Cortot, Salle Gaveau, Salle Pleyel, Theatre des Champs-Elysees and Théâtre du Châtelet.

Mr. Pompa-Baldi’s recent engagements include a triumphant debut in Beijing, China : after a recital in the Forbidden City Concert Hall, and Master Classes at the China National Conservatory, he was named Honorary Guest Professor of that Institution; highly acclaimed recitals in London, England, and Palma de Mallorca, Spain, and a performance with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine in Kiev . Mr. Pompa-Baldi also made orchestral and solo debuts at Carnegie Hall, respectively in Isaac Stern Auditorium and Zankel Hall, as well as appearances with the Houston Symphony, Berliner Symphoniker (in Tokyo, Japan), Colorado Symphony, North Carolina, Peoria, and Duluth Symphony Orchestras, Rochester Philharmonic, Jacksonville Symphony, Auckland Philharmonia (New Zealand), Kansas City Symphony, Toledo Symphony, Cleveland Pops, National Orchestra of Santo Domingo, Symphony of the Americas (Ft. Lauderdale), and Canton Symphony. He also performed recitals in cities such as Seoul, Paris (Chopin Festival), Chicago, Ravinia, Houston (Texas Music Festival), Portland (OR), Sacramento, Fort Worth (Cliburn Series), Salt Lake City (Assembly Hall), and Duszniki Zdroj, Poland (Chopin Festival).

Antonio Pompa-Baldi has collaborated with leading conductors including Hans Graf, James Conlon, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Keith Lockhart, Christopher Seaman, Fabio Mechetti, Daniel Hege, Louis Lane, Pascal Rophe’, Grant Llewellyn, and Stefan Sanderling, appearing with the Boston Pops, the Pacific Symphony, the Orchestre Philarmonique de Metz (France), the Orchestre National de Paris-Radio France, as well as the Symphony Orchestras of Fort Worth, Syracuse, Columbus, Charleston, Southwest Florida, and Spokane. Other notable recital engagements include Bologna, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Antonio, Hartford, Miami and San Juan (Portorico).

Violinist Elena Urioste

Selected by Symphony magazine as an emerging artist to watch, Elena has been hailed by critics and audiences alike for her rich tone, the nuanced lyricism of her playing, and her commanding stage presence. Since making her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at age thirteen as winner of the Greenfield Competition, she has appeared as soloist with major orchestras throughout the United States including the Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Pops, National Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, New Mexico, and San Antonio Symphony Orchestras, as well as Hungary’s Orchestra Dohnanyi Budafok. Upcoming performances include debuts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Buffalo Philharmonic, among others.

As one of three recipients of the prestigious London Music Masters Award, a three-year international career development award, Urioste will make her Wigmore Hall debut in 2009. First-place laureate in both the Junior and Senior divisions of the Sphinx Competition, she debuted at Carnegie Hall in 2004 and has returned annually to that esteemed venue’s Stern Auditorium as soloist. In 2009, Urioste also made her debut at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall with award-winning conductor Alondra de la Parra. She has collaborated with acclaimed pianists Christopher O’Riley and Ignat Solzhenitsyn; conductors Robert Spano, Keith Lockhart, Carlos Miguel Prieto and Michael Stern; and violinists Shlomo Mintz, Cho-Liang Lin, and David Kim, among others. A featured artist in the Ravinia, La Jolla, Sarasota, and Kingston Music Festivals, the International Young Artists Music Festival, and Switzerland’s Sion Valais International Festival of Music, Urioste has been most recently invited to participate in the prestigious Marlboro Music Festival summer of 2010.

The 2007 first-prize winner of the Sion International Violin Competition, Miss Urioste was also awarded the audience prize and the prize for the best performance of the competition’s newly commissioned work.

Urioste’s media appearances include multiple performances on the popular radio programs From the Top and Performance Today, as well as on Telemundo. She has been featured in the Emmy award winning documentary Breaking the Sound Barrier, and in numerous magazines including Symphony, Strings, Careers and Colleges, and Philadelphia Music Makers. Urioste’s first CD was recently released on the White Pine label.

Urioste is a graduate of the esteemed Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with Joseph Silverstein, Pamela Frank and Ida Kavafian, and also completed graduate studies with Joel Sminoff at The Julliard School. Other notable teachers include David Cerone, Choong-Jin Chang, Soovin Kim, and the late Rafael Druian.

The outstanding violin and bow being used by Miss Urioste are an Allessandro Gagliano, Maples, c. 1706 and Pierre Simon bow on extended loan from the private collection of Dr. Charles E. King. – October 2009