New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra

Shostakovich Festive Overture

Haydn Cello Concerto in C Major, Hob. VIIb:1

Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 in d minor Op. 47

Cultural Lost and Found

Cellist Sophie Shao is not only winner of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant but also top prizes at the Rostropovich and Tchaikovsky competitions. She joins NASO for the first time in a much anticipated performance of Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in C major, Hob. VIIb:1, a work presumed lost until a copy of the score was discovered at the Prague National Museum in 1961. The program opens with Shostakovich’s Festive Overture, an exuberant curtain raiser written at the last moment in 1954 for the Bolshoi Theatre’s concert marking the anniversary of the Russian Revolution.

In the 1930’s Shostakovich found himself in Stalin’s disfavor and thus he described Symphony 5 as ‘A Soviet Artist’s Creative Reply to Just Criticism’. That labeling is now seen as indeed ‘creative’. The work was so well received (a 40-minute ovation at the premiere) that Rostropovich was said to have thought that the reception alone saved Shostakovich from being killed.

Conductor Teresa Cheung completed an acclaimed 13-year tenure as Music Director of the Altoona Symphony Orchestra in 2021 and recently returned to New York after one of her many collaborations in Hong Kong. She has often conducted NASO and we are honored by each of her appearances.

*Butterfly Concerto with Wendy Chen postponed to 2022-23 season