Curtis Symphony Orchestra Presents “Yuja Wang Plays Rautavaara” April 26 at Marian Anderson Hall, Kimmel Center

Press Contacts:
Patricia K. Johnson | patricia.johnson@curtis.edu | (215) 717-3190
Ryan Scott Lathan | ryan.lathan@curtis.edu | (215) 717-3145

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PHILADELPHIA, PA—April 17, 2025—The 2024–25 Curtis Symphony Orchestra series concludes on Saturday, April 26, 2025, at 3 p.m., in Philadelphia’s Marian Anderson Hall, Kimmel Center. One of the world’s most celebrated pianists, superstar Curtis alumna Yuja Wang (’08), known for her “exceptional power, depth, and dazzle” (Los Angeles Times), joins the Curtis Symphony Orchestra and five-time Grammy Award-winning conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Curtis’ head of conducting, for a tour de force performance of Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Piano Concerto No. 1. This exciting program also features works by Lili Boulanger, Maurice Ravel, and Claude Debussy, in a cinematic and emotionally charged afternoon of Nordic fire and French elegance.

The program opens with Prix de Rome winner Lili Boulanger’s joyful D’un Matin de printemps (“Of a Spring Morning”) opens the concert, under the baton of Mariana Corichi Gómez, first-year Rita E. Hauser Conducting Fellow. Composed in 1917–18, this brisk tone poem is one of the French composer and multi-instrumentalist’s final works, completed before her untimely death at age 24. Utilizing the textures of flute, muted brass, chirping woodwinds, strings, celeste, and harp glissandos to evoke images of dawn breaking, this bright, festive work bursts through the bar lines with energy as it playfully dances in the sunlight and shadows. A hymn to nature, D’un Matin de printemps is a testament to Boulanger’s genius—a bittersweet reflection of life’s fleeting beauty and the immense promise of an artist gone too soon.

The concert continues with Yuja Wang’s breathtaking performance of Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Piano Concerto No. 1. A stunning work of musical and emotional extremes—ferocious, primal, and explosively cinematic at times, yet sublimely tender at others—this post-modernist triumph from 1969 features soaring melodies, sharp dissonances, and explosive palm and forearm clusters that shock and thrill. Filled with unbridled tension and aching romanticism, the concerto’s relentless interplay between the piano and orchestra builds to a rhythmically charged, breathless finale.

Maurice Ravel’s sumptuous orchestral song cycle Shéhérazade follows, a work inspired by the wildly imaginative tales of The Arabian Nights. This lush musical travelogue features a guest appearance by exciting mezzo-soprano Judy Zhuo, Curtis’ Horace W. Goldsmith Fellow. Throughout this remarkable song cycle, the orchestra animates the evocative poetry, capturing the breathless excitement and ephemeral, dreamlike landscapes of a storybook fantasy.

The concert concludes with French impressionist composer Claude Debussy’s childhood recollections of the sea, the atmospheric symphonic sketches, La mer. Shaped largely by recollections from the French composer’s childhood rather than maritime adventures, the sea was not only a literal body of water to Debussy, but a turbulent psychological phenomenon that reflected all the rich complexities of human emotions, nature’s uncontrollable forces, and the passing wonder of life itself. In three enthralling movements, this iconic 20th-century orchestral masterpiece, written between 1903 and 1905, captures the briny scent of salt shimmering in the sunlight, the mischievous splash of the waves, and the wondrous awe, terror, and might of the ocean in all its many moods.

TICKETS
Single tickets for “Yuja Wang Plays Rautavaara” at Marian Anderson Hall are available through curtis.edu (Limited Availability). To learn more about the remaining performances in Curtis’ 2024–25 season, visit curtis.edu/calendar.

Yuja Wang Plays Rautavaara
Saturday, April 26, 2025 at 3:00 p.m.
Marian Anderson Hall at the Kimmel Center; Broad and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor
Mariana Corichi Gómez, conducting fellow
Yuja Wang (’08), piano
Judy Zhuo, mezzo-soprano
Curtis Symphony Orchestra

Philanthropic Support for Curtis’ 2024–25 Season
Yuja Wang’s performance is generously underwritten by Deborah M. Fretz. Additional support for Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s performance has been underwritten by Judith and James Ritchings.

Curtis’ Centennial Season is made possible through the support of Derek and Sissela Bok, the Mary Louise Curtis Bok Foundation, Deborah M. Fretz, Charles C. Freyer and Judith Durkin Freyer, Mignon and Jim Groch, Rita E. Hauser, Lisa and Gie Liem, Bob and Guna Mundheim, Judith and James Ritchings, Bob and Caro Rock, and Mark and Robin Rubenstein.

Guest conductor appearances for each Curtis Symphony Orchestra performance are made possible by the Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser Chair in Conducting Studies.

Orchestral concerts are supported by the Jack Wolgin Curtis Orchestral Concerts Endowment Fund.

Curtis Institute of Music receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

About Curtis Institute of Music
At Curtis, the world’s great young musicians develop into exceptional artists, creators, and innovators. With a tuition-free foundation, Curtis is a unique environment for teaching and learning. A small school by design, students realize their artistic potential through intensive, individualized study with the most renowned, sought-after faculty. Animated by a learn-by-doing philosophy, Curtis students share their music with audiences through more than 100 performances each year, including solo and chamber recitals, orchestral concerts, and opera—all free or at an affordable cost—offering audiences unique opportunities to participate in pivotal moments in these young musicians’ careers. Curtis students experience a close connection to the most renowned artists and organizations in classical music, as well as innovative initiatives that integrate new technologies and encourage entrepreneurship—all within a historic campus in the heart of culturally rich Philadelphia. In this diverse, collaborative community, Curtis’s extraordinary artists challenge, support, and inspire one another—continuing an unparalleled 100-year legacy of musicians who have led, and will lead, classical music into a thriving, equitable, and multidimensional future. Learn more at curtis.edu.

Photo Credits: Yuja Wang (Norbert Kniat and Julia Wesely). Curtis Symphony Orchestra (Matt Genders). Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting the Curtis Symphony Orchestra (David DeBalko). Mariana Corichi Gómez (Gonzalo Perea Photography). Judy Zhuo (Nichole MCH Photography).