Brahms Symphony No. 2
Saturday, January 8 at 7:30 pm
Sunday, January 9 at 3:00 pm
Hemmens Cultural Center, Elgin, IL
Concert Program
Lidiya Yankovskaya, conductor
Schaghajegh Nosrati, piano
Wagner: Overture to Flying Dutchman WWV 63
Schumann: Piano Concerto, op.7, A minor
Brahms: Symphony No 2, op.73, D major
Ticket Information
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Prices: Gold $65 / Red $50 / Green $35
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Health and Safety
The ESO is thrilled to return to the stage for an exciting 2021-2022 season! We look forward to welcoming you back to enjoy live performances with your Elgin Symphony Orchestra.
The health and safety of our musicians, staff, and you are paramount as we resume live concert experiences. As such, we have established the following policies in accordance with CDC and State of Illinois guidelines to best protect everyone who enters the concert hall:
- All audience members must provide proof of complete vaccination for COVID-19 prior to entering the concert venue, regardless if these were previously shown or submitted.
- Please bring your COVID-19 vaccination record to the performance (photos of both sides of the record are also accepted), as well as photo Identification.
- As currently mandated by the State of Illinois, concert attendees will be required to wear masks at all times within concert venues.
- Tickets will be on sale at the Hemmens Cultural Center one-hour prior to each performance. However, to be mindful of the safety concerns surrounding COVID-19, we encourage our patrons to purchase tickets in advance to prevent crowding within the venue.
- Pre-purchased tickets may be collected at Will Call on the day of the concert. Tickets purchased online the day of the concert will require proof of purchase.
We look forward to welcoming you back for a wonderful season of great music. If you have any questions, please contact our Box Office at 847-888-4000.
Lidiya Yankovskaya
Russian-American conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya is a fiercely committed advocate for Russian masterpieces, operatic rarities, and contemporary works on the leading edge of classical music. She has conducted more than 40 world premieres, including 16 operas, and her strength as an innovative and multi-faceted collaborator has brought together the worlds of puppetry, robotics, circus arts, symphonic repertoire, and opera onstage. As Music Director of Chicago Opera Theater, Ms. Yankovskaya has led the Chicago premieres of Jake Heggie’s Moby-Dick, Rachmaninov’s Aleko, Joby Talbot’s Everest, Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, and the world premiere of Dan Shore’s Freedom Ride.
Elsewhere, she has recently conducted Don Giovanni at Seattle Opera, Pia de’ Tolomei at Spoleto Festival USA, Il barbiere di Siviglia at Wolf Trap Opera, Ellen West at New York’s Prototype Festival, and the world premiere of Taking Up Serpents at Washington National Opera. On the concert stage, she has been recently engaged with Chicago Philharmonic, Rhode Island Philharmonic, and the symphony orchestras of Mobile and Oviedo, Spain. Upcoming debuts include Dallas Opera, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Glimmerglass Festival, Hawaii Symphony Orchestra, Houston Grand Opera, and Opera Seville.
Ms. Yankovskaya is Founder and Artistic Director of the Refugee Orchestra Project, which proclaims the cultural and societal relevance of refugees through music, and has brought that message to hundreds of thousands of listeners around the world. In addition to a National Sawdust residency in Brooklyn, ROP has performed in London, Boston, Washington, D.C., and the United Nations. She has also served as Artistic Director of the Boston New Music Festival and Juventas New Music Ensemble, which was the recipient of multiple NEA grants and National Opera Association Awards under her leadership.
As Music Director of Harvard’s Lowell House Opera, Ms. Yankovskaya conducted sold-out performances of repertoire rarely heard in Boston, including Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the U.S. Russian-language premiere of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden. Her commitment to exploring the breadth of symphonic and operatic repertoire has also been demonstrated in performances of Rachmaninoff’s Aleko and the American premieres of Donizetti’s Pia de’ Tolomei, Rubinshteyn’s The Demon, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Kashchej The Immortal and Symphony No. 1.
An alumna of the Dallas Opera’s Hart Institute for Women Conductors and the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship, Ms. Yankovskaya has also served as assistant conductor to Lorin Maazel, chorus master of Boston Symphony Orchestra, and conductor of Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra. She has been featured in the League of American Orchestras Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview and Cabrillo Festival for Contemporary Music, and assisted Vladimir Jurowski via a London Philharmonic fellowship.
Ms. Yankovskaya holds a B.A. in Music and Philosophy from Vassar College, with a focus on piano, voice, and conducting, and earned an M.M. in Conducting from Boston University. Her conducting teachers and mentors have included Lorin Maazel, Marin Alsop, Kenneth Kiesler, and Ann Howard Jones.
Ms. Yankovskaya’s belief in the importance of mentorship has fueled the establishment of Chicago Opera Theater’s Vanguard Initiative, an investment in new opera that includes a two-year residency for emerging opera composers. Committed to developing the next generation of artistic leaders, she also volunteers with Turn The Spotlight, a foundation dedicated to identifying, nurturing, and empowering leaders – and in turn, to illuminating the path to a more equitable future in the arts.
Recipient of Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Awards in 2018 and 2021, Ms. Yankovskaya has been a featured speaker at the League of American Orchestras and Opera America conferences, and served as U.S. Representative to the 2018 World Opera Forum in Madrid.
For more information: https://lidiyayankovskaya.com
Schaghajegh Nosrati
Schaghajegh Nosrati was born in Bochum in 1989. She has become known as an extremely versatile musician; that she could establish herself as a concert pianist in early years is due to her excellent reputation as an interpreter of Bach´s music. Her International breakthrough came in 2014 as an award winner at the International Bach Competition in Leipzig and particularly through her increasing musical collaboration with Sir András Schiff who praised the “astonishing clarity, purity and maturity” as well as the musical comprehension associated with it when she plays Bach.
After many years of working with Rainer M. Klaas, Schaghajegh Nosrati was admitted to the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media as a young student of Einar Steen-Nökleberg. She completed her master´s degree under Christopher Oakden in 2015 and her artist diploma under Ewa Kupiec in 2017. She completed another artist diploma degree in 2020 as a student of Sir András Schiff at the Barenboim-Said-Academy in Berlin. Robert Levin, Murray Perahia and Daniel Barenboim gave her further artistic inspiration.
Between 1998 and 2018, she performed as a guest at international music festivals such as the Festival International Echternach, the Schumannfest Düsseldorf and the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad. Further performances followed at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, the NDR Kleine Sendesaal in Hannover, the Gewandhaus Leipzig, the Anneliese Brost Musikforum Ruhr in Bochum, the Beethovenhaus Bonn, the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, Tonhalle Zurich, 92nd Street Y in New York, Palau de la Música Catalana Barcelona as well as at the Berliner Philharmonie (with the Mitteldeutsches Kammerorchester, the Deutsches Kammerorchester Berlin and the Bochumer Symphoniker).
In 2017, she had her first concert tour in China including debut performances in Shanghai and Beijing. Furthermore she was invited to play a concert tour with Sir András Schiff and Capella Andrea Barca in 2018 with performances in Dortmund (Konzerthaus), Düsseldorf (Tonhalle), Luxembourg (Philharmonie), Brussels (Palais des Beaux Arts), Vienna (Musikverein), Baden-Baden (Festspielhaus), Salzburg (Stiftung Mozarteum), Bratislawa (Philharmonic Concert Hall), Lucerne (KKL) and Hamburg (Elbphilharmonie).
In 2019 she took the Pierre Boulez stage in Berlin in place of Radu Lupu who had to withdraw from his recital due to illness.
The German label Genuin Classics has released two highly acclaimed CD´s with Schaghajegh Nosrati. In 2015 she recorded her debut album with J.S. Bach´s ” Art of Fugue”. Her second album (released in autumn 2017) is a recording of Bach´s piano concertos BWV 1052-1054 played with Deutsches Kammerorchester Berlin.
In October 2019 the German label CAvi Music has released the pianist´s third CD with a selection of piano solo works (amongst others the “Concerto pour piano Seul”) by Charles Valentin Alkan.
After having taught as a lecturer in Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media from 2015 to 2019, she became a faculty member of the Barenboim-Said-Academy in Berlin in 2020 as the teaching assistant of Sir András Schiff.
For more information: https://www.nosrati-pianist.com/english
