Japanese-Canadian violinist Karen Gomyo together with the JPO will perform Antonín Dvořák’s Violin Concerto for Violin and Orchestra – a gem of Czech violin literature.

Antonín Dvořák
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in A minor, Op. 53

John Adams
The Chairman Dances, foxtrot for orchestra

Zoltán Kodály
Dances from Galanta

Karen Gomyo – violin
Janáček philharmonic Ostrava
Gilbert Varga – conductor

Antonín Dvořák’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra is a gem of Czech violin literature. One of the most important violin virtuosos of the second half of the 19th century, Joseph Joachim, whom Dvořák met through Johannes Brahms, had a significant influence on its musical form.

Japanese-Canadian violinist Karen Gomyo, who will perform the work with the JPO, is a sought-after soloist who regularly works with the world’s leading orchestras. Composer John Adams is one of the icons of contemporary American musical culture and one of the most important representatives of musical minimalism. The orchestral foxtrot The Chairman’s Dances was composed in China in 1985 and, according to Adams, represents a reaction – purely musical – to the irresistible image of a young Mao Zedong dancing the foxtrot with his mistress Jiang Qing, the former B-movie queen and future Madame Mao who was the mind and soul of China’s Cultural Revolution.

The work of Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály combines the heritage of Western European music with the influences of lively Hungarian folk music. Dances from Galanta, written in 1933, is the composer’s recollection of his childhood in this Slovakian city. The folk music of the local region, together with themes taken from an ancient collection of Hungarian dances published in 1800, form the basis of an orchestral group of seven dances that culminate in the final czardas.