News release Public Information Office   SLU 10880   Hammond, LA 70402   phone: 985-549-2341   fax: 985-549-2061 publicinfo@selu.edu Spring 2004 news releases Public Information home News archive Contact: Christina Chapple Date: 10/21/04   Click on image for publication quality photo  SOUTHEASTERN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA FANFARE CONCERT TO FEATURE ACCLAIMED VIOLINIST      HAMMOND – Under the direction of Yakov Voldman, Southeastern Louisiana University’s acclaimed Chamber Orchestra will perform selections by Bizet’s “Carmen” and welcome world-renowned violin soloist Ilya Kaler in a Fanfare festival concert Oct. 25 at the Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts.       Voldman said the pieces for the free concert, scheduled for 7 p.m., “were chosen around the theme “Beauty and the Beast.”      “Each composition,” he said, “evokes an aspect of one or the other of the contrasting images the theme suggests.” Carmen, he said, is one of opera’s favorite characters, a strong-minded, independent and erotic beauty. Some 19th century audiences wondered if Paganini’s awe-inspiring technical skill came from a beastly pack with the devil.      The 50-member orchestra will open the program with “Carmen” and Bizet’s “Le’arlesienne Suites.”      The character of Carmen, Voldman said, was controversial in Georges Bizet’s 19th century world. “Carmen belies the timid, weak, compliant role that women of Bizet’s time were expected to fill,” he said. Bizet’s composition initially was a failure and the depressed composer died days after its inauspicious premiere. “He probably would have been pleased and perhaps shocked to learn his work became one of the most famous, most beloved, most often performed operas in history,” Voldman said.  He said the “Carmen Suites Nos. 1 and 2” are compilations of some the opera’s most memorable tunes, including the Habañera, and the Toreador song.      Bizet composed “L’arlesienne Suites Nos. 1 and 2” to accompany the scenes of Alphonse Daudet’s 1872 play by the same name. The music’s folk-like melodies evoke the atmosphere of the play’s Provençal setting.       “The play flopped, but the incidental music became popular,” Voldman said.       The concert’s second half will spotlight Kaler, who is returning to the Columbia stage for a second appearance with the Chamber Orchestra. The only composer ever to win gold medals at the Tchaikovsky, Sibelius and Paganini competitions, Kaler will perform Paganini’s “Violin Concerto No. 2.”      Voldman said the performance will mark a first in Louisiana. The piece, he said, “is a wonderful example of combining technical virtuosity with theatrical melodrama in music. It demands a flawless technique and a flair for showmanship.”      “To many of his contemporaries, Nicolo Paganini was quite a beast,” Voldman said. “He was the 19th century equivalent of a rock star, the epitome of the virtuoso-performer/composer. He wove intoxicatingly strong spells on his audiences. Some listeners thought he had certainly made a pact with the devil.      “He had even refused to have his violin blessed with holy water fearing the water might destroy his instrument,” Voldman said. “In return, upon his death, the Catholic Church refused to grant him a Christian burial, and for years Paganini’s son traveled around Europe with the corpse.”      Voldman said Paganini’s genius was to model his music after Italian opera. “He treats the violin like a human voice. At points the violin almost ‘speaks,’” he said.       Kaler is already being compared to the likes of violinists Heifetz and Perlman. His recordings of works by composers such as Paganini, Schumann, Shostakovich, and Dvorak have met with equally universal acclaim. “The Washington Post” unabashedly lauds him as, "a consummate musician” who is “in total control at all times, with a peerless mastery of his violin."       Kaler has earned rave reviews for solo appearances with distinguished orchestras throughout the world. He has performed with the Leningrad, Moscow, and Dresden Philharmonic Orchestras, the Montreal Symphony, the Danish and Berlin Radio Orchestras, and the Moscow and Zurich Chamber Orchestras, among others. His solo recitals have taken him throughout Europe, Scandinavia, East Asia, and the former Soviet Union and he has performed with the Detroit, Baltimore, and Seattle Symphony Orchestras, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.      Also an active chamber musician, Kaler has performed for several summers at the Newport Music Festival in Newport, Rhode Island. He is professor of violin at the DePaul University School of Music in Chicago.