Symphony Nova Scotia conducted by Earl Lee with guitarist Daniel Bolshoy

Featuring
Earl Lee, conductor
Daniel Bolshoy, guitar
Symphony Nova Scotia

On the program

Carlos Simon: Fate Now Conquers
Joaquín Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez
Chris Brubeck: Affinity: Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 2

Winner of the 2022 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award, Earl Lee is a renowned Korean-Canadian conductor and cellist who has captivated audiences worldwide. He is in his second season as Music Director of the Ann Arbor Symphony and his third season as Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony, which he has led in subscription concerts at both Symphony Hall and Tanglewood.  

Daniel Bolshoy returns to join forces with Symphony Nova Scotia for two virtuoso guitar showpieces. An Israeli-Canadian guitarist and educator, he has performed as a soloist with more than 60 orchestras internationally, and returns to Symphony Nova Scotia after his triumphant performance in 2016. 

Joaquín Rodrigo, nearly blind since the age of three, was a pianist who did not play the guitar. And yet he wrote of the most influential works for the instrument: Concierto de Aranjuez. Inspired by the gardens at the Royal Palace of Aranjuez, the composer states that it captures "the fragrance of magnolias, the singing of birds, and the gushing of fountains." The work notably incorporates flamenco guitar techniques (such as the strumming at the very beginning) and it is justifiably famous for the beauty of its slow movement. First stated by the english horn, the opening melody is then ornamented by the solo guitar. This music is well known to jazz aficionados in its Gil Evans arrangement for the Miles Davis album Sketches of Spain. 

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 was mostly written in 1802, when his hearing loss was becoming more pronounced and he began to realize that it might be incurable. The work dispenses with the usual minuet and instead has an extended scherzo. The last two movements are full of musical jokes that were not necessarily appreciated at the time: one Viennese critic wrote  of the Symphony that it was "a hideously writhing, wounded dragon that refuses to die, but writhing in its last agonies and, in the fourth movement, bleeding to death."