Barenboim, Yo-Yo Ma usher in new century

Barenboim, Yo-Yo Ma usher in new century

Daniel Barenboim, musical director of the Chicago Symphony and Yo-Yo Ma, cellist, begin the first subscription concert of 2000 tonight at 8 p.m. and continuing Friday, Jan. 7 at 1:30 p.m. and Saturday, Jan. 8 at 8 p.m. in the Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave.

In the opening salute to the new millennium, Music Director Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra present the world premiere performances of "Ceremonial" by Augusta Read Thomas, the orchestra's composer-in-residence. The concert also includes music by Igor Stravinsky and Antonin Dvorak's beloved cello concerto with popular soloist Yo-Yo Ma.

It is the firs of four subscription concert programs that will be presented as part of Barenboim's winter residency with the Orchestra.

Thomas' score, "Ceremonial," was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to usher in the new century. In recent years, the orchestra has commissioned two works from Augusta Read Thomas, "words of the sea" in 1996 and "Orbital Beacons" in 1998. Only 35 years old, Thomas already enjoys a major career; her list of commissions is growing steadily and her works are performed in major international music centers. She has been in the Orchestra's composer-in-residence since March 1997.

Fittingly paired with Thomas's brand new work is Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring," the score which created the biggest scandal in the history of music. The freshness and daring of this revolutionary composition, penned in 1913 for Diaghilev's ballet, put Stravinsky at the very forefront of the avant-garde.

Devorak's cello concerto dates from 1894, when the composer, at the peak of his worldwide fame, was teaching in New York. The concerto reflects no signs of Dvorak's American experience, rather it has long been accepted as a sign of his homesickness for his native Bohemia.

Yo-Yo Ma, regarded as one of the greatest cellists of the century, has appeared regularly with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra both in Orchestra Hall and at the Ravinia Festival since his 1979 subscription concert debut.

His first collaboration with Barenboim and the CSO was in 1994; in September 1996, he performed the Dvorak "Cello Concerto" under Maestro Barenboim's baton for the CSO's opening night pension fund concert.

Yo-yo Ma will appear in a special concert Sunday, Jan. 9 at 3 p.m.

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