West Side Story Suite
90 years since the death of Elgar
The prominence of German, French and Russian music in concert programmes often leads us to ignore—or at least underestimate—the worth of music from the Anglo-Saxon sphere. This is precisely the tendency this concert sets out to correct, and in the most convincing manner possible, by presenting three masterpieces by Edward Elgar, an Englishman, and the Americans Leonard Bernstein and John Adams. Our thriving musicians, the maestro Michalis Economou and pianist Stefanos Nasos perform three works written in three different centuries: the Enigma Variations (from the 19th century) is the romantic masterpiece with which Elgar conquered the world, West Side Story (20th) spoke to the souls of audiences everywhere by interweaving serious music into the format of the musical, while John Adams' Concerto (21st) proves that classical forms still have the power to electrify audiences today.
