Archives for May 2014

Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa has been Atlantic City’s leading casino hotel for more than a decade and that includes on the concert stage as we bring a host of national and international entertainment acts to the area.

This summer alone Borgata will bring acts like Santana, Avril Lavigne and Keith Urban to the Borgata Event Center.

But no matter how big we get on the national concert circuit, Borgata remains first and foremost a South Jersey institution committed to the region’s budding art scene.

In 2008, Borgata began a relationship with the Bay Atlantic Symphony, South Jersey’s home orchestra dedicated to bringing classical music to the southern New Jersey shore. The Bay Atlantic Symphony has been a pioneer in community-based classical orchestras, bringing performances, educational programs and lecture series to much of South Jersey.

Borgata’s partnership with the symphony continues in 2014 with the second Bay Atlantic Concert Series at Borgata’s Music Box.

Three concerts are scheduled this summer on July 13, August 3 and August 17.

And, as has become the tradition, the series starts off with a bang as the symphony brings in renowned pianist Yuja Wang to lead off the series on July 13.

The symphony based in Bridgeton and Atlantic City—thanks to Borgata and the symphony’s longstanding relationship with the Stockton Performing Arts Center in Galloway Township—has a long tradition of hooking up with major classical artists from Philadelphia and around the mid-Atlantic region for performances.

Yuja Wang is one of the most exciting, in-demand young pianists in the country. The Detroit News called her “simply the most important pianist to appear in recent years, period,” and she has appeared with major symphony orchestras around the world.

She’s also made several top-selling recordings for Deutsche Grammphon, collaborating with such conductors as Gustavo Dudamel, Claudio Abbado, Kurt Masur, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Sir Andrew Davis.

At the July 13 Borgata appearance with the Bay-Atlantic Symphony, she will perform Dmitri Shostakovich’s exciting, virtuoso Piano Concerto No. 1, a piece she will later perform with Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

But Borgata audiences will hear it first.

“We are truly honored and privileged to have an artist of the caliber and world-wide reputation of Yuja Wang joining us for this concert series. People have heard her bring down the house in concerts and broadcasts with the orchestras in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Cleveland, Lucerne and elsewhere. Now they have a chance to hear her here,” said Bay-Atlantic Symphony Executive Director Paul Herron. “The concept of taking the great classical masterpieces into a casino showroom worked so well last year that Borgata is bringing us back. We are constantly trying to find new, exciting ways to present classical music and to build on our established partnerships.”

Each of the three concerts, conducted by Bay Atlantic Symphony Music Director Jed Gaylin, feature emerging solo artists. Here’s the full concert list.

July 13—Yuja Wang highlights a concert devoted to musical humor with Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor, Op. 35. The concert will also feature Ludwig van Beethoven’s Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21.

August 3—Two of the beloved late works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart will share the program—his Symphony No. 39 in e-flat major, K.543 and the Clarinet Concerto in A major, K.622. The concerto will feature the Bay-Atlantic Symphony’s dynamic principal clarinetist, Christopher Di Santo, as soloist.

August 17—In a musical tour to faraway lands, the orchestra will start in 13th-century Sicily for the rousing overture to Giuseppe Verdi’s opera I Vespri Siciliani. Alexander Borodin’s romantic In the Steppes of Central Asia, with melodies familiar from the musical Kismet, takes us to that nomadic part of the globe. The sharp-edged sounds of the North are portrayed in Jean Sibelius’ bold Finlandia. Johannes Brahms’ powerful, sublime Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77 will feature the artistry of internationally-acclaimed violinist Caroline Goulding.

All concerts will be on Sundays at 5pm. Tickets are $25 and are on sale now. For tickets, call Borgata’s box office at (866) 900-4849 or go click here.

For more information on this and other Bay-Atlantic Symphony concerts and programs, call the Symphony at (856) 451-1169 or visit their website at www.bayatlanticsymphony.org.