Marc-André Hamelin & Pacifica Quartet

The American Pacifica Quartet and Marc-André Hamelin already share eccentric repertoire choices and boundless virtuosity. They will be pairing up Dvorák's popular Second Piano Quintet with the Piano Quintet by the lesser-known composer Leo Ornstein. When Ornstein died in 2002, the music world lost a fascinating composer and possibly the oldest of all time (although his year of birth is uncertain, he is said to have reached the age of 109!). His biography reads like a novel: child piano prodigy in Russia, where he was born, a refugee from anti-Semitic pogroms under the Tsars, avant-garde composer in the US and internationally celebrated piano virtuoso. At the height of his fame, he withdrew from public view, was forgotten and lived just long enough to experience the renewed interest in his work. Hamelin's recording of his solo piano works contributed to his rehabilitation. In his most radical works, Ornstein used the piano as a percussion instrument, with wild, bucking rhythms and angry clusters. Raw primal energy from start to finish. His 1927 Piano Quintet is a masterpiece: exuberant, heroic and full of energy. Just like Hamelin's own 'Passacaglia'. A concert that will blow your socks off!