For its final spring season concert,
the Brooklyn Philharmonic performs a world premiere and welcomes
back a conductor who made a splendid 2005 debut with the orchestra.
Chelsea Tipton, a last-minute replacement for last season’s
final concert (when former music director Robert Spano fell ill),
returns to the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s opera house podium
for the May 13 event, whose works are linked by the program’s
title, "Freedom!"
After Daniel Roumain’s curtain-raiser, "Hip-Hop Essay,"
comes Leonard Bernstein’s first symphony, "Jeremiah,"
which "is based on the oppression of the Jews and the liberation
of the blacks," according to current music director Michael
Christie.
Following Bernstein is "Remembering Harriet," the
latest work by British composer Thea Musgrave: a suite of music
from her opera, "Harriet, the Woman Called Moses,"
about the abolitionist Underground Railroad and former slave
Harriet Tubman.
"Thea, who’s in her 70s, is a really strong composer with
a lyrical, romantic writing style," Christie says. "She
followed in [Benjamin] Britten’s musical footsteps. It’s a very
robust, emotional style, which I think audiences will enjoy."
The Brooklyn Philharmonic plays Roumain, Bernstein and Musgrave
May 13 at 8 pm at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House (30 Lafayette
Ave. at Ashland Place in Fort Greene). Tickets are $20-$60, with
$10 student rush tickets the day of the performance. For more
information, visit www.brooklynphilharmonic.org
or call (718) 488-5700.
