Kalamazoo Philharmonia Concert

The Saturday, June 2nd performance is entitled “Feast or Famine” and is in collaboration with the Bach Festival of Kalamazoo.

Program includes:

Walton Belshazzar’s Feast
Led by Chris Ludwa, Bach Festival Director
Stankovych Requiem for Those Who Died of Famine (U.S. Premiere)

William Walton’s spectacular oratorio traces the writing on the wall that foretells doom for the decadent Belshazzar, and liberation for the Hebrew slaves in Babylonian captivity. This epic narrative combines jazz rhythms and great drama to portray a hedonistic world reveling in excess. This ancient tale is balanced by music which commemorates a more recent tragedy: the Ukrainian Holodomor of 1933, when millions of Ukrainians perished needlessly on Stalin’s orders. Contemporary Ukrainian composer Yevhen Stankovych’s Requiem for Those Who Died of Famine, heard here in its U.S. premiere, memorializes the tragedy’s 85th anniversary.

Additional touring performance of Stankovych’s Requiem: Saturday, May 19, 2018 in Chicago’s Harris Theater.