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LVSO Concert Hall

LVSO| DMITRI LEVKOVICH PERFORMS L. VAN BEETHOVEN

D. Digim. "De Focus"

L. van Beethoven. Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73

H. Berlioz. "Symphonie fantastique"

Dmitri Levkovich, piano

Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra

Conductor Ričardas Šumila

Dmitry Levkovich, a Ukrainian-born artist living in Canada, was born with two vocations: pianist and composer. Levkovich's piano performances have been praised for his "extraordinary artistic sophistication" (German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) and his "understanding of music, far ahead of most of his peers" (American Record Guide). His original compositions have been praised by Philadelphia's Broad Street Review for their "heartfelt melodies" and "huge emotional ripples".

For the piano, Levkovich studied with the legendary Armenian pianist Sergei Babayan and at the Curtis Institute of Music in the USA. Levkovic has won numerous international competitions, audience and special prizes. The pianist has already performed in concert halls all over the world such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Théâtre des Champs Elysees, Paris, Carnegie Hall, New York, and the Warsaw Philharmonic, among others. Tonight D. Levkovich's star will shine in Vilnius, where he will perform with the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra L. van Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73, known for its grandeur, vivid melodies and heroic spirit.

In the second part of the concert, the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra will perform one of the most famous works by the great French Romantic composer, Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), the Symphonie Fantastique (Fantastic Symphony: An Episode in the Life of an Artist), in its full title. One of the first works of programmatic music, the symphony is also notable for its innovative, even revolutionary ideé fixe theme for the time, depicting Berlioz's own hallucinatory fantasies, which obsessed him as a result of his unhappy love for the Irish actress Harriet Smithson. In fact, after the symphony's premiere, the composer's seven years of suffering came to an end: impressed by Berlioz's fame (the premiere was attended by the likes of Ferenc Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, Niccolò Paganini, and the writers Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, and George Sand), Mrs Smithson agreed to marry the composer. The symphony, which was premiered in Paris in 1830, earned Berlioz a reputation as one of the most progressive composers of the century.