The Jacksonville Symphony will perform the first Florida Blue Masterworks Series concert of the season Sept. 29-30 with guest pianist, Jonathan Biss. The concert will feature the iconic fifth symphonies of both Schubert and Sibelius, in addition to Beethoven’s second piano concerto and a work composed for Biss by Timo Andres.
Music Director Courtney Lewis will be joined on stage with virtuosic pianist Jonathan Biss, who performed two of the selected works with Lewis in New York last season. The concert will mark Biss’ Jacksonville Symphony debut and he will be playing two works with the symphony: Beethoven’s “Piano Concerto No. 2” and “The Blind Banister,” a piece written specifically for him by Timo Andres.
“The Blind Banister” is part of a series being created for Biss’ Beethoven/5 project that was started with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in 2015. Andres’ piece is the first of the five to be composed.
“In 2015, I asked five very different composers to address this question,” Biss said. “The project, called Beethoven/5, takes five different compositional voices – from different parts of the world and different musical traditions – and asks each of them to write a work which, in whatever way they see fit, responds to one of the Beethoven piano concerti.”
Performances will begin at 8 p.m. at Jacoby Symphony Hall, located in the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts at 300 Water St. in Jacksonville. To purchase tickets, visit www.jaxsymphony.org or call the ticket office at (904) 354-5547.
