Saturday, November 3, 8 p.m.
Adler Theatre, 136 East Third Street, Davenport IA
Sunday, November 4, 2 p.m.
Augustana College's Centennial Hall, 3703 Seventh Avenue, Rock Island IL
Continuing its 2018-19 season of Masterworks presentations, and held in celebration of the ensemble's 104th season of classical performance, the Quad City Symphony Orchestra will deliver of trio of sublime compositions in the November 3 and 4 concert event Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto, named after the climactic, intensely challenging piece to be played by piano virtuoso Wei Luo.
Born in Shenzhen, a southern part of China, and the receipent of 2018's Gilmore Young Artist citation, Wei Luo showed an interest in music and began piano lessons around age five, giving her debut recital in Hong Kong at age six. Winner of numerous competitions in China, Wei claimed first prize in the 11th Chopin International Competition for Young Pianists in Poland and the Second Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition for Young Pianists in Frankfurt, both in 2010. She made her orchestra debut at age 10 with the Shanghai Philharmonic, and along with the ensemble's artistic director Muhai Tang, they opened the 2011 season by performing Prokofiev's “Concerto No. 3” in ShangHai Oriental Art Center. Over the years, her piano recitals have been broadcast worldwide on classical radio channels such as WWFM (New Jersey) and WQXR (NYC), and two years ago, Wei was the receiptent of the esteemed “Salon de Virtuosi” Carrer Grant in New York.
Last year, Wei made her recital debuts in Lincoln Center's David Geffen Hall and San Francisco's Herbst Hall, and annually performs at Festival Napa Valley, the Mostly Mozart Festival, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival amongst other engagements. She has also performed with world-class musicians such as violinist Daniel Hope and cellist Gary Hoffman, and has been the recipient of thunderous critical praise. Revue magazine extolled Wei's “deep sonories, fiery intensity, and unfiltered rawness,” while the Philadelphia Inquirer, in a recent concert review, lauded “those moments when she took you so far inside the music that your ears left behind previous points of reference, partly because she immerses herself in the music with an intensity that borders on madness.”
This latest Masterworks presentation will open with composer Joseph Haydn's exuberant and surprising “London Symphony No. 104,” with the area musicians then traveling to the Coast of Suffolk for Benjamin Britten's surging and unrelenting Four Sea Interludes from his opera Peter Grimes. The concerts will conclude with Lei taking on Sergei Rachmaninoff's “Piano Concerto No. 3,” a veritable Mount Evereset of classical music that famous inspired pianist Gary Graffman to lament that he never learned the piece as a student, when he was “still too young to know fear.”
The Quad City Symphony Orchestra's latest Masterworks concerts will be held at the Adler Theatre at 8 p.m. on November 3 and at Augustana College's Centennial Hall at 2 p.m. on November 4, admission is $8-62 on Saturday and $8-39 on Sunday, and more information and tickets are available by calling (563)322-7276 or visiting QCSO.org.
