NEW YORK – Mahler’s Musical Legacy: An In-Depth Interview with Maestro David Bernard on the ‘Beginnings and Endings’ Mahler Festival, announcing an extraordinary music adventure for the 2024-2025 season.
Tonight’s concert, Transcendent Triumph and Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 was suitably billed as the Full InsideOut Concerts™ Experience. This performance by David Bernard and Park Avenue Chamber Symphony honored Rachmaninoff’s masterpiece of Russian romantic music with its soaring emotional heights and virtuosic writing. Bernard’s informative introductions and work with children help educate current and future audiences on symphonic music’s beauty, magnificence, and importance.
Performed by the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony at today’s two concerts was Sergei Prokofiev’s delightful Peter and the Wolf featuring WQXR evening host and luminary Terrance McKnight. In this symphonic fairy tale for children, Prokofiev introduced storytelling, the instruments of the orchestra, and abstract thinking associated with how sound can represent images and ideas. This delightful, imaginative experience was pedagogically exceptional for engaging cognitive functions related to symbolic representation, conceptualization, and metaphorical thinking. Most importantly, it was engaging and fun.
