Saturday, November 18, 2023
7:30 PM
Garde Arts Center, New London

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The guest artist at the ECSO’s November 18 concert will be Hyung Joon Won, a South Korean-born, Juilliard School-trained violinist, who will perform Antonín Dvořák’s impassioned Violin Concerto in A Minor, composed in 1879.  In 2009, Won, who hopes to form an inter-Korean orchestra with North Korean members, founded the Lindenbaum Festival Orchestra, an annual music festival in South Korea promoting the message of peace and harmony through music. In 2018, ECSO Music Director & Conductor Toshiyuki Shimada joined Won in the Demilitarized Zone in South Korea for a Peace Concert, which featured members of the Yale Symphony and young musicians from South Korea, China, Japan, and Tunisia.

Prior to the Dvořák, the concert will open with the overture to L’Amant Anonyme (The Anonymous Lover), a 1780 comic opera by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges. Fencer, dancer, violinist, and conductor, Saint Georges, a contemporary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, is considered the first acclaimed classical composer of African descent.

After intermission, the ECSO will play Béla Bartók’s five-movement Concerto for Orchestra, which had its premiere in 1944 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitzky. The piece makes use throughout of folk melodies from Bartók’s native Hungary—which he left for New York in 1940—also quoting a song from Franz Lehár’s operetta The Merry Widow in the humorous fourth movement, the “interrupted intermezzo.”

You can subscribe today to lock in discounts, complimentary vouchers, and the same seats for each concert. The order form is available here, or you can call the ECSO office at 860-443-2876 to discuss seating options.

Catch Hyung Joon Won at the upcoming speaking engagements ahead of our concert:

Friday, November 10, 4:30pm
Yale University, Sudler Hall, 100 Wall St., New Haven, CT 06511
Hyung Joon Won will give a chamber music performance and lecture along with ECSO Music Director & Conductor Toshiyuki Shimada. Click here for more information.

Wednesday, November 15, 12:00pm
Norwich Rotary Club, Bella Fiore,
543 W Thames St., Norwich, CT 06360
Hyung Joon Won will give a brief solo performance and lecture about his peace-making efforts through music. Click here for more information.

Thursday, November 16, 12:15pm
New London Rotary Club, The Thames Club,
290 State St., New London, CT 06320
Hyung Joon Won will give a brief solo performance and lecture about his peace-making efforts through music. Click here for more information.