What about the music?
An inside look with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra
Brahms’ Double Concerto with Sterling Elliott & Grace Park
April 3, 2027 | 7:30PM | CNU’s Ferguson Center for the Arts, Newport News – Get Tickets
April 4, 2027 | 2:30PM | Sandler Center for the Performing Arts, Virginia Beach – Get Tickets
Eric Jacobsen, conductor
Grace Park, violin
Sterling Elliott, cello
Claude Debussy: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
Johannes Brahms: Concerto for Violin and Cello
Still/Goosby: Suite for Cello & Orchestra
Ottorino Respighi: Fountains of Rome
By Stella Feliberti
The Performers
conductor
Eric Jacobsen
Already well-established as one of classical music’s most exciting and innovative young conductors, Eric Jacobsen combines fresh interpretations of the traditional canon with cutting-edge collaborations across musical genres. Hailed by the New York Times as “an interpretive dynamo,” Eric, as both a conductor and a cellist, has built a reputation for engaging audiences with innovative and collaborative programming.
Eric joined the Virginia Symphony Orchestra as Music Director in 2021, being named the twelfth music director in the orchestra’s 100+ year history. Current and recent projects include recording projects of Dvorak and Coleridge-Taylor with Gil Shaham and Rhapsody in Blue (on banjo!) with Bela Fleck.
Eric is entering his tenth season as Music Director of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, as he continues to pioneer the orchestra’s programming and community engagement in new and exciting directions. The 24-25 season looks forward to concerts including An Evening with Jamie Bernstein and the World Premiere of Gabe Kahane’s clarinet concerto for Anthony McGill.
Eric is also artistic director and co-founder of The Knights, the uniquely adventurous NYC-based chamber orchestra. The ensemble, founded with his brother, violinist Colin Jacobsen, grew out of late-night music reading parties with friends, good food and drink, and conversation. Current endeavors include a multi-year Rhapsody project as well as a residency at Carnegie Hall. Under Jacobsen’s baton, The Knights have developed an extensive recording collection, including albums with longtime collaborators Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham, Aaron Diehl, Gabe Kahane, and Anna Clyne.
Eric’s musical life started from a very young age surrounded by a musical family, where he discovered his love of pulling a bow across a string as a cellist. He and his brother founded the string quartet Brooklyn Rider and also performed regularly with Yo-Yo Ma as a member of Silk Road, touring around the world. This collaborative spirit and sense of music is something that Eric strives to bring to every concert and project.
A frequent guest conductor, Eric has established continuing relationships with the Colorado Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the Oregon Bach Festival, and the Dresden Musikfestspiele. Upcoming engagements also include concerts with Classical Tahoe and Grant Park Music Festival, and special performances with Yo-Yo Ma and the Atlanta Symphony and Utah Symphony.
Eric brings joy, storytelling, and a touch of humor to what he describes as “musical conversations” that delight audiences around the world, including those who do not traditionally attend classical music concerts. Jacobsen is married to Grammy-Winner singer-songwriter Aoife O’Donovan and together they have a daughter.
violin
Grace Park
Grace Park is a violinist celebrated for her artistry, passion, and virtuosity. Praised by the San Francisco Chronicle as “fresh, different and exhilarating” and by Strings Magazine for her “intensely wrought and burnished” sound, she captivates audiences worldwide. A winner of the Naumburg International Violin Competition, Ms. Park is recognized both as a dynamic soloist and a devoted chamber musician.
Ms. Park’s most recent solo debuts include the Colorado Music Festival, Bard Festival under the baton of Leon Botstein, Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall with the New York Youth Symphony, The Rudolfinum/ Dvorak Hall in Prague with Prague Philharmonia, and recital debuts at Krannert Center, Beethoven Minnesota Festival and Merkin Hall.
Future collaborations include her solo debuts at Seoul Arts Center with Les Musiciens du Louvre with Marc Minkowski, Sarasota Orchestra with Peter Oundjian, Orlando Philharmonic with Eric Jacobsen, along with chamber music debuts at the Savannah Music Festival and Camerata Pacifica.
Ms. Park recorded her debut solo album with the Prague Philharmonia and their music director, Emmanuel Villaume, which will include concertos and solo works of Mozart and Dvorak. It is set to be released in the spring of 2025.
A devoted and passionate educator, Ms. Park is an alumnus of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect and has taught masterclasses and coached at Conservatorio de Musica de Cartagena, Mannes School of Music, University of North Carolina, University of Mississippi, Washington and Lee University, North Dakota State University, Skidmore College, among others. She currently teaches as adjunct professor at the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University.
As a native to Los Angeles, California, Ms. Park began violin at the age of 5 where she trained at the Colburn School of Music. She continued her studies at Colburn Conservatory and New England Conservatory for her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees. Principal teachers are Donald Weilerstein, Miriam Fried, Sylvia Rosenberg, and Robert Lipsett. She now resides in New York City.
She performs on a 1717 Giuseppe Filius Andrea Guarneri on loan from an anonymous sponsor.
cello
Sterling Elliott
Acclaimed for his stellar stage presence and joyous musicianship, cellist Sterling Elliott is a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient and the winner of the Senior Division of the 2019 National Sphinx Competition. Still in his mid-twenties, Elliott has appeared with orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony and the Dallas Symphony, working with noted conductors including Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Thomas Wilkins, Jeffrey Kahane, and Mei Ann Chen, among others.
In 2025/2026 Sterling Elliott debuts with the Phoenix Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the BBC Scottish Symphony, and at the BBC Proms with Edwin Outwater. As featured soloist with the Sphinx Virtuosi, he takes part in a mutli-city tour with performances at Carnegie Hall, Shriver Concert Series, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Gardner Museum, and Schubert Club and more. As a chamber musician, he continues his residency in the Bowers Program of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, appearing with CMLSC at Alice Tully Hall and on tour throughout the United States, as well as in trio performances with Anthony McGill and Gloria Chien.
As the Robey Artist with the London-based Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) in partnership with Music Masters, Elliott regularly performs throughout the UK and Europe including at Wigmore Hall, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, as well as on tour in New Zealand. In 2024, Elliott was named a BBC New Generation Artist.
He is an ambassador of the Young Strings of America, a string sponsorship operated by Shar Music. He performs on a 1741 Gennaro Gagliano cello on loan through the Robert F. Smith Fine String Patron Program, in partnership with the Sphinx Organization.
The Creators
Claude Debussy
Pronounced Deh-byoo-see
Fast Facts:
- Claude Debussy was a French composer born near Paris in 1862. He started piano lessons at the age of seven though his parents weren’t musicians at all. His father owned a china shop and his mother, a seamstress.
- It was by age ten that Debussy began his studies at the prestigious Paris Conservatoire, where he would study for the next eleven years. He originally attended the program in hopes of being a piano virtuoso, but failed to win the school’s premiere prize. However, during his studies, he discovered a passion for composition, and eventually won the school’s Prix de Rome — the highest award for composition.
- One summer, Debussy secured a job as the pianist for Tchaikovsky’s patroness, Nadezhda von Meck. She even sent one of Debussy’s early works to Tchaikovsky to which he replied, “Not a single idea is expressed fully, the form is terribly shriveled, and it lacks unity.”
- Debussy’s music is often described as ‘impressionistic’ as it uses harmony and orchestration to create colors and sensations rather than melodic and defined music, as seen in the Germanic tradition. However, Debussy despised this term as he once said, “I am trying to do ‘something different’… what the imbeciles call ‘impressionism,’ a term which is as poorly used as possible, particularly by the critics.”
- Despite composing around 141 works in his lifetime, he never wrote a large-scale symphony. To him, this genre was obsolete and instead focused on composing “symphonic sketches,” or a thematically driven multimovement work for orchestra, such as La Mer (the Sea). He also wrote a number of solo piano works, chamber music, songs, and one opera.
Johannes Brahms
Pronounced Bra-amz
Fast Facts:
- Johannes Brahms was born in 1833 into a musical atmosphere as his father played horn, double bass, and flute. Brahms started to compose at age 11, but as he got older, he became embarrassed of these early compositions and destroyed most of them.
- Brahms met Hungarian refugee and violinist, Eduard Remenyi, in 1850, which introduced Brahms to a range of folk and gypsy music that inspired many of his works. Remenyi also was the one to introduce Brahms to virtuoso violinist Joseph Joachim, who would become a life long collaborator and friend of the composer.
- Brahms was a German composer and pianist who was one of the leading musicians of the Romanic period. He is known for his motivically driven style of composition, which Schoenberg called “developing variation.” This refers to the continuous development of short musical ideas, or motives, throughout a piece.
- Brahms was extremely good friends with fellow composer Robert Schumann. He was first introduced to Schumann by the great virtuoso violinist Joseph Joachim. It was through Schumann that Brahms rose to stardom.
William Grant Still
Fast Facts:
- William Grant Still was born in 1895 in Mississippi. His father died when he was three months old, leading to his mother moving to Arkansas. Here, it was Still’s step-father who began to nurture his musical interests by taking him to operettas and buying classical recordings for him.
- Still started his musical training fairly late at age 15 with the violin. From there, he taught himself the clarinet, saxophone, oboe, double bass, cello, and viola.
- Still’s mother originally wanted him to go to medical school, leading to Still attending Wilberforce University. He discovered his love for composition and conducting here, and eventually transferred to Oberlin Conservatory to study composition. At Oberlin, Still was able to study with French composer Edgard Varèse and American composer George Whitefield Chadwick.
- After serving in World War I, Still moved to Harlem and was involved with many cultural figures of the Harlem Renaissance including, Langston Hughes, Alain Locke, Arma Bontemps, and Countee Cullen.
- In 1934, Still moved to Los Angeles where he had the opportunity to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. He was the first Black man to conduct his own work with a major American Orchestra.
- Still accomplished many “firsts” throughout his career. He was the first African American to conduct a major orchestra, first to have an opera produced by a major company in the US, and first to have a symphonic work performed by a major orchestra. All these milestone achievements earned him the title as the “Dean of Afro-American Composers.”
- Still’s music encompasses a variety of styles that reflect his music upbringings and experiences. He includes jazz, popular music, and spirituals within his Romantic-style sounds.
Ottorino Respighi
Fast Facts:
- Italian composer Ottorino Respighi was born in 1879 in Bologna. Though his father was an accomplished pianist and grandfather was a violinist and organist, young Repighi was uninterested in music until age 8.
- Respighi was mostly self-taught when it came to piano due to poor experiences with impatient piano teachers. Thus later in life, he often avoided scales in his compositions because of his inability to play them correctly.
- In addition to music, Respighi had a keen interest in geography, science, and language. He even became fluent in 11 languages throughout his life. His wife also recalled a meeting between Respighi and Albert Einstein who was impressed with Respighi’s understanding of scientific theories.
- Before becoming a composer full time, Repighi was an accomplished violinist. He earned positions in both the Teatro Comunale di Bologna and the Russian Imperial Theatre.
- Respighi wrote in a wide variety of genres ranging from tone poems, operas, ballets, chamber music, choral music, and even historical transcriptions. His most prominent works include his Roman trilogy of The Fountains of Rome, The Pines of Rome, and Roman Festivals.
The Pieces
Debussy
Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
Listen to Debussy’s Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un Faune by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony:
- Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un Faune (Prélude to the Afternoon of a Faun) is a tone poem written by Claude Debussy in 1894. The work is based on a symbolist poem by Stephane Mallarmé with the same name.
- Inspired by the poem, Debussy aims to create “a very free illustration of Mallarmé’s beautiful poem. By no means does it claim to be a synthesis of it. Rather there is a succession of scenes through which pass the desires and dreams of the faun in the heat of the afternoon.”
- Though the work is not fully programmatic, the work aims to conjure images of a faun playing his pan-pipes in the woods when he becomes enamored by passing nymphs and naiads, unsuccessfully pursuing them. He abandons this chase when he falls into an afternoon nap filled with visions and evocative dreams.
- In order to create this mystical dream world, Debussy includes many improvisatory-like gestures with tumbling scales, ambiguous rhythms, harmonies and meters, and cyclical gestures and phrases.
- The work opens with an rhapsodic melody from the flute over ambiguous harmonies in the horns, strings, and harp to transport the listener into this fantasy world. New subjects are brought in by the woodwinds, tumbling over each other to slowly build to a climax. After this climax, the languorous opening theme returns once more, sleepier than before. Solo cello, oboe, the. flute, horns, violins, and woodwinds weave together to bring the work to an enchanting close to a fantastical dream.
Brahm
Concerto for Violin and Cello
Listen to Brahms’s Double Concerto by the Elbphilharmonie Orchestra:
- Brahms’s Double Concerto for Violin and Cello was written in 1887 and is his last work for orchestra. It was written for cellist Robert Hausmann, a frequent collaborator of Brahms’s, and violinist Joseph Joachim, his now estranged friend.
- At this point in Brahms’s life, he had become estranged from his close friend Joachim after Joachim’s bitter divorce with his wife. Brahms wrote this piece partly as a reconciliation gesture to Joachim.
- Throughout the work, there is a perpetual musical motif of A-E-F, which is a permutation of Brahms’s earlier F-A-E motif, found in the F-A-E Violin Sonata written for Joachim in 1853. These motifs stand for Joachim’s personal motto, Frei aber einsam, meaning “free but lonely.”
- After the premiere of the work, audiences were not impressed with the work as it lacked the flashy virtuosity to show off these two instruments. Even close friend and composer Clara Schumann noted that the work lacked “the warmth and freshness which are so often found to be in [Brahms’s] works.” However, to Brahms this work expresses humour and folly, despite the solo parts being demanding and rugged.
Still
Suite for Cello and Orchestra
Listen to Still’s Suite for Violin and Piano by Randall Goosby:
- Originally written for Violin and Piano, violinist Randall Goosby arranged this 1943 work by William Grant Still for Cello and Orchestra.
- Each movement of the Suite was inspired by a different sculpture created during the Harlem Renaissance where each one depicts a unique facet of the Black experience. The three sculptures include Richmond Barthé’s African Dancer, Sargent Johnson’s works, and Augusta Savage’s Gamin (young boy).
- The first movement, African Dancer, captures Barthé’s spirituality of the Black community in his sculpture with the same name. This movement is full of rolling rhythms and accented dance steps to create an unified expression of power and presence, eventually shifting to a mellow atmosphere marked by its lyricism and soulfulness. The second movement, “Mother and Child,” expresses the relationship between mother and child, which was integral to Johnson’s works. This movement expresses both the tenderness of a loving mother and innocent child as well as the heartache of Johnson’s own experience of losing both parents by age 15. The suite closes with Savage’s mischievous Gamin, modeled after Savage’s nephew Elis Ford. To depict a playful child, Still conjures the bustling street of Harlem with blues and jazz idioms as the young boy prances through the neighborhood. This whole work not only encaptures key parts of the Black experience but the joy and vivacity of the community.
Respighi
Fountains of Rome
Listen to Respighi’s Fountains of Rome by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony:
- The Fountains of Rome is a tone poem written by Respighi in 1916. It is the first of three tone poems that make up Repighi’s Roman Trilogy.
- Each movement of the work aims to depict the setting of one of Rome’s fountains at a different time of day. The fountains illustrated include the Valle Giulia, Triton, Trevi, and Villa Medici.
- In order to depict these fountains and Rome itself, Respighi includes two major details in each movement: motifs to evoke sensorially perceived details of the fountains as well as motifs to show the cultural echo of the history of these sights. Respighi wrote that his purpose was “to give expression to the sentiments and visions suggested… by four of Rome’s fountains, contemplated at the hour in which their character is most in harmony with the surrounding landscape, or in which their beauty appears most impressive.”
- The first movement portrays the Fountain of the Valle Giulia, depicting a pastoral landscape at dawn. There are echoes of cattle passing and damp mist settling in the Roman dawn against the frenzied dance of jets of water from the fountain. Next is the Fountain at Triton in the morning. This fountain is defined by its joyous theme to showcase the sounds of naiads and Tritons pursuing each other in a wild dance underneath the falling water spray. Following is the Trevi Fountain at noon, which takes on a new triumphant character as Neptune’s chariot passes through the radiant water, followed by sirens and tritons on his tails. Last is the Fountain at the Villa Medici at sunset, taking on a more melancholic character. The atmosphere here is delicate and intimate with bells tolling in the background as birds twitter and leaves rustle until the silence of night takes over.
Glossary
Symphony
A large four movement work written for full orchestra.
Concerto
A work for a solo instrument accompanied by orchestra, usually in three movements.
Impressionism
An artistic movement in the late 19th century, started in France. It is known for its style focused on capturing light and the sensation of the subject, not the subject itself.
Symbolism
A literary movement of the late 19th century that represented truths symbolically through metaphorical images.
Tone Poem
A single movement piece for orchestra that depicts a non-musical piece of literature, image, or poem.