Beethoven and Schumann

Due to illness, Jeffrey Kahane will be replaced by conductor Nicholas McGegan and piano soloist Robert Levin, for the concert formerly titled “Kahane Plays Beethoven.”

Conductor Nicholas McGegan—long hailed as “one of the finest baroque conductors of his generation” (The Independent) and “an expert in 18th-century style” (The New Yorker)—leads the final Festival Orchestra performance of the season. The orchestra is joined by Robert Levin as the soloist in Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto. Levin has been a SMF faculty artist since 1979, Festival Director from 2006-2017, and is an internationally celebrated pianist and scholar.

Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 is famous for its dialogue between soloist and orchestra. Building on the Festival’s theme of “The Power of Storytelling through Music,” Beethoven’s masterpiece is often associated with the legend of Orpheus’ descent to the underworld, and combines the spirit of chamber music with symphonic majesty. Emily Cooley’s Argo offers a lush, colorful meditation on the meaning of identity—is the great ship still the same if all its parts are replaced over time? The Festival concludes as it began—with the music of Robert Schumann. Exploring the different aspects of spring’s beauty, Schumann’s joyous “Spring” Symphony brings the 2023 Sarasota Music Festival to a rousing close.