The Chamber Music Society of Colombo (CMSC) proudly presents its ‘Season Finale’ concert for 2017. The concert is supported by the Premier Sponsor of the CMSC, Fairway Holdings. The Orchestra of the CMSC is led by its Concertmaster and Artistic Director, Lakshman Joseph de Saram. The programme will include a veritable smorgasbord of works by Rameau, Mozart, Elgar and J.S.Bach, which are designed to excite, inspire, fascinate and intrigue in turn. The soloist for the evening in Mozart’s popular Piano Concerto no .21 (better known as “Elvira Madigan”), will be Edinburgh-based musicologist, linguist, composer and pianist, Tanya Ekanayaka, who will also perform the Sri Lankan première of two of her new compositions contained in her forthcoming album for Naxos Records and which had their world premières in 2017 in Yerevan, Armenia and London respectively.
The Third Orchestral Suite by Bach is best known for one of its movements which has the nickname “Air on the G-string”, and this is an opportunity to hear it in context of the work in its entirety. The rarely heard, under-rated and phenomenally gifted composer from the époque of the French Baroque, Jean-Philippe Rameau is represented by music from three ballets - Platée, Nais and Fêtes d'Hébé. The suite is an arrangement for an orchestra of classical proportions, by the brilliant Viennese conductor and composer, Felix Josef von Mottl. The Elgar Serenade for Strings, Op. 20, was an early work, and was his first major work, and remains among his most frequently performed works (apart from the ubiquitous Pomp and Circumstance Marches!). The warmth of the central Larghetto foreshadows the great works that would flow from his pen. Tickets for the concert will be at Barefoot and the Lionel Wendt from November 5, 2017.