Davenport, IA-Due to the heavy snow storms on the east coast this week, Elissa Lee Koljonen is unable to travel the Quad Cities for this weekend's performance with the Quad City Symphony Orchestra. Her husband, violist Roberto Díaz, was able to get a flight to Chicago and will be performing as scheduled this weekend. He will be joined in performing Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola by one of America's greatest violinists and the concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Robert Chen. This is a return engagement for Chen who performed the Barber Violin Concerto with the QCSO in 2002.
Robert Chen has been concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1999. During his years as the CSO concertmaster, he has been featured as soloist with Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Bernard Haitink, Christoph Eschenbach, Charles Dutoit, Ton Koopman, and James Colon. He gave the CSO premiere of György Ligeti's Violin Concerto, Elliott Carter's Violin Concerto, and Witold Lutoslawski's Chain Two, as well as the world premiere of Augusta Read Thomas's Astral Canticle. Most recently, he appeared as soloist on subscription concerts at Orchestra Hall in October 2013 as soloist in Hindemith's Violin Concerto with Riccardo Muti conducting.
In addition to his duties as concertmaster, Chen enjoys a solo career that include performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic, New Japan Philharmonic, NDR Orchestra of Hanover, and the Bournemouth Symphony, collaborating with conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Manfred Honeck, Pavel Kogan, and Andreas Delfs.
The Quad City Symphony Orchestra is also performing romantic favorite, Fauré's Suite from Pelleas and Melisande, and Mendelssohn's "Italian" Symphony. Masterworks 4 will be performed on February 15 and 16. Saturday evening's concert is at the Adler Theatre in Davenport at 7:30 p.m., and followed on Sunday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. at Centennial Hall in Rock Island. This concert is sponsored by John Deere.
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