Carleton presents Grammy Award-winning Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra

Carleton College invites the public to a free, unticketed performance by the Grammy Award-winning Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (SPCO) on Saturday, March 2, at 8 p.m. in the Kracum Performance Hall of the Weitz Center for Creativity. The concert will feature acclaimed German conductor and pianist Christian Zacharias, who is a former artistic partner with the SPCO.

The program will open with Zacharias performing Mozart’s final piano concerto, an autumnal farewell to the piano concerto and the medium that brought him the most success in his lifetime as a composer and performer. The concerto will be paired with Anton Bruckner’s gorgeous Adagio for Strings, arranged from the original string quintet version by the late Stanislav Skrowaczewski. In the second half of the program, Zacharias will conduct the SPCO performing Beethoven’s Second Symphony, as well as Jörg Widmann’s elegiac Aria, before the bright D major of Beethoven’s Second Symphony brings the concert to a joyous conclusion.

In 2007, Zacharias was awarded the MIDEM Classical Award for “Artist of the Year.” A 2012 review in The New Yorker called Zacharias “a performer who is suited for the world stage,” and a 2014 review in The New York Times remarked that “few have Mr. Zacharias’s lyrical gracefulness and subtle touch.”

Raised in Germany, Zacharias studied piano in Paris and launched an international career after winning the Ravel Competition in Paris in 1975. He has performed with several of the world’s best orchestras, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and the English Chamber Orchestra. He began his conducting career in 1992, and made his U.S. debut in 2000 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Since the 2017-18 season, he has held the position of Principal Guest Conductor with the Community of Madrid Orchestra. 

Now in its 60th season, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra is widely considered one of the finest chamber orchestras in the world. Its virtuoso musicians present more than 130 concerts and education programs in the Twin Cities each year, and it has released 67 recordings, including the 2017 Grammy Award-winning recording of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden. Learn more on the SPCO website.

This event is sponsored by the Carleton College Department of Music. For more information, including disability accommodations, call (507) 222-4475. The Weitz Center for Creativity is located at Third and College Streets in Northfield.