Greetings from the Middle East: Folk Songs & Scheherazade

The Performance

Under the baton of Conductor Ruth Reinhardt, enjoy this visit to the Middle East with Israeli composer Avner Dorman’s contemporary Azerbaijani Dance. Vali’s Folk Songs will feature mezzo-soprano Janna Baty. Baty performed the world premiere of this piece and is also featured on the only recording of the work. The performance will conclude with the well-known Scheherazade.

Folk Songs (Set No. 10), completed in September 1992, is the tenth set of an ongoing cycle of Persian folk songs that Reza Vali has been writing since 1978. The piece consists of four songs, two of which (songs No. 2 and No.4) are based on authentic Persian folk melodies. Songs No. 1 and No. 3 are composed in the style of an imaginary folk song. The third song (Lament) is a funeral dirge written in memory of Olivier Messiaen.

Purchase tickets for the abbreviated Coffee Concert on April 21