February’s busy arts calendar continues this week with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra in a double header of sorts. At 11 a.m. on Feb. 20, the VSO offers a one-hour Coffee Concert in the Ferguson Center, which features two works that will also be heard that evening on the regular VSO series.
Grammy-nominated Haitian American Nathalie Joachim, a vocalist, flutist and composer, embraces varied musical styles such as indie-rock, pop and classical. She has said that her “Cocoon” explores the “process that takes place when a caterpillar builds a cocoon and transposes into a butterfly.”
Also on the program will be Tchaikovsky’s well-known Piano Concerto No. 1, with Clayton Stephenson on the keyboard. Essentially becoming a universally recognized piece by Van Cliburn in 1958 when he won the first International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition held in Soviet Union, the event was organized to showcase Russian cultural superiority during the Cold War. He won and thus became an international celebrity. The piece is lush, lyrical, romantic, expressive and offers brilliant technical passages. Easily one of the most played works of the piano concerto genre.
