5

Continuing a Michigan summer tradition, the DSO returns to
Meadow Brook Music Festival/Or a five-week series of weekend concerts.

SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to the Jewish News

he Detroit Symphony
Orchestra has. tuned in to
the nature of its summer
audiences and set up three
varieties of weekend concerts this season
at Meadow Brook Music Festival.
"Family Fun Fridays," geared to both
families and newcomers to classical
music, offer lighter classical fare topped
off by fireworks; "Sensational Saturday
Classics" feature classical masterworks
and prominent soloists; and "Sunday
Summer Pops" contain a diverse lineup
aimed at fans of popular music. Friday
and Saturday concerts begin at 8 p.m.
and Sunday concerts begin at 7:30 p.m.
The outdoor shows include stellar
guest artists who have performed at
Orchestra Hall at other times of the
year. Violinist Pinchas Zukerman, pops
composer-pianist-singer Burt Bacharach
and pianist Matthew Herskowitz will be
among the featured performers.
Pianist Vladimir Feltsman, a Russian
refusenik who came to America in 1987
and had his New York debut at
Carnegie Hall, helps get the series off
the ground as part of the first concert of
the series, "Opening Fanfare." He plays
a Mozart concerto in a program that
includes selections by Copland, Tower,
Bizet and Britten. The concert con-
cludes with a colorful fireworks display.
"If you cannot enjoy Mozart, then
what can you enjoy?" asks Feltsman,
who will perform Piano Concerto No.
23. "I am playing one of the most joy-
ful pieces Mozart ever wrote with very
beautiful, slow movements.
"The program is very summery
with mostly 20th-century music, and
to put some Mozart inside it will be
quite delightful. It's not a usual, acade-
mic program for a classical concert. It's
an outdoors, anything-goes, have-a-
good-time program."
Although Feltsman will be per-
forming with conductor Marin Alsop,
he has shared the stage with DSO
conductor Neeme Jarvi.
"I used to work with Neeme Jarvi
quite a bit when he used to be in Russia

7/2
1999

82 Detroit Jewish News

Left: Vladimir Feltsman peiforms Mozart's "Piano Concerto No. 23" on Friday, July
Top right: Marin Alsop conducts the DSO's opening weekend concerts at Meadow Brook Music Festive
Bottom right: Burt Bacharach performs his hits, accompanied by the DSO, on Sunday, July 1

and I used to be in Russia," recalled
Feltsman, who travels extensively both
in the United States and Europe.
With two parents who performed
classical music, Feltsman seemed a
natural for the piano.
"I liked to practice," says the musician,
47, who plays at a Steinway in his own
studio. "My mother was my first teacher,
and I just worked my way through
and enjoyed it most of the time."
Feltsman made his concert debut at

age 12 with the Moscow Philharmonic
Orchestra. His first prize in the 1967
Concertina International Competition
in Prague led to his enrollment in the
Moscow Conservatory, and four years
later, he won the prestigious
Marguerite Long Competition in Paris.
During the next 15 years, he toured
extensively throughout Russia and
Eastern Europe, but his career was
abruptly interrupted when Soviet
authorities responded to his applica-

tion to emigrate by banning him fron
performing in public.
"I found myself in line with many
thousands of so-called refuseniks, Jewi
people who wanted to leave Russia V
couldn't get a visa," Feltsman explains.
"These people suffered quite a bit of
discrimination, and I got my share. Fe
eight years, I was basically unable to
work, but that was long ago. I don't
have any bitterness toward my mothe
land. I wish [the people] well."