NJ Festival Orchestra presents “Picture This! Imagery In Music!”

2:30pm.  Tickets $45 – $85

PROGRAM:

TAN DUN Crouching Tiger: Hidden Dragon Concerto featuring Mo Mo, cello.

MUSSORGSKY (Arr. Yu) Pictures at an Exhibition

David Wroe conductor

Mo Mo cello

New Jersey Festival Orchestra

Hollywood blockbuster Crouching Tiger: Hidden Dragon meets Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition!

Under the baton of Maestro David Wroe, acclaimed guest cellist Mo Mo joins the orchestra to perform the Crouching Tiger: Hidden Dragon Concerto, a concert work based on Tan Dun’s score for Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning mystical martial arts film. Mo Mo, from Beijing, China, was specially selected by composer Tan as one of the few official performers of his Oscar-winning score, originally written for Yo Yo Ma.

NJ Festival Orchestra then leaps into life with “Pictures at an Exhibition – Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky‘s most famous work – a series of 10 sketches featuring gnomes, laborious oxen, ancient catacombs, castles and more. It is music so iconic that it has spurned countless orchestral arrangements. NJFO presents Chinese/Australian composer Julian Yu’s take on Mussorgsky’s original, bringing the pictures to life with vibrant western and Chinese orchestral effects to create, perhaps, the most imaginative of all the arrangements.

About soloist Mo Mo: Celebrated by the Weekly Music magazine for his “impeccably logical and also vivid, emotional playing,” guest soloist Mo Mo has firmly established himself as one of the leading cellists of his generation. In recent years, Mo Mo’s performances have resonated with leading orchestras across the United States, China, and Europe at iconic venues such as Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., National Center for Performing Arts in Beijing, Jordan Hall in Boston, and the Fontainebleau Palace in Paris.  His accolades include top prizes at international competitions such as the 2016 Schoenfeld International String Competition in Harbin, China, and the 2017 Koussevitzky Young Artist Award in New York.