Event
Carmen and La mer
Naples Philharmonic Masterworks
Naples Philharmonic
Alexander Shelley, artistic and music director
Javier Perianes, piano
Ravel — Mother Goose Suite
Jimmy López — Ephemerae, Piano Concerto
Bizet — Carmen Suite No. 1
Debussy — La mer
This year’s Storytelling theme again comes into focus with this musical program about fairy tales, a soldier’s seduction and abandonment, memories of the sea and whether music has a scent. Join Artistic and Music Director Alexander Shelley, the Naples Philharmonic and the expert precision of special guest pianist Javier Perianes as they retell the stories we love through music.
The evening opens with Alexander leading the orchestra through Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite, a piece Ravel originally wrote as a piano duet (four hands on a single piano) for the 6- and 7-year-old children of friend and Polish sculptor Cyprian Godebski. Throughout the five movements, the orchestra tells the tales of Sleeping Beauty, Tom Thumb and Beauty and the Beast.
In the evening’s second frame, Perianes joins the orchestra for a piano piece that was written specifically for him. In Ephemerae by Jimmy López Bellido, the Peruvian composer asks whether music ... smells? Fascinated by synesthesia — a neurological condition wherein one sense is triggered by an unrelated sense, such as certain sounds triggering a perception of color — Bellido constructed his concerto similar to the way perfumers categorize scents, with the first movement, “Bloom,” recalling citrus and floral notes; the second, “Primal Forest,” conjuring pine and lavender; and the third, “Spice Bazaar,” evoking a stroll through an open-air spice market, where one’s olfactory system shifts into overdrive.
Bizet’s most beloved work, Carmen, tells the story of a naive soldier whose life goes into a tailspin after being seduced by a Romani woman. This suite from the 1875 opera serves as a smorgasbord of everything Bizet does best: creating a flurry of lasting melodies plucked from old folk songs that he uses to vividly express the soldier’s passion and Carmen’s fate.
Concluding the evening is a performance of Debussy’s La mer, a composition that drew inspiration from the sea paintings of J.M.W. Turner, Japanese artists Hokusai and Hiroshige and the happy memories the composer felt as a young boy during family vacations to Cannes. Called Debussy’s most concentrated and brilliant work due to his ability to capture the sea in all its stages — tranquil, mysterious, tumultuous and terrifying — the story of La mer is just as refreshing today as it was when the composer’s first wave of notes washed over audiences during its debut in 1905.
Prelude at 6:30pm
Join the conductor before the performance for an insightful 30-minute prelude discussion about the program.
Music and Museum
All Masterworks tickets include same-day admission to The Baker Museum. Museum hours on day of performance: 10am-7:30pm. In addition, the doors to Hayes Hall will open 90 minutes prior to this performance. Arrive early to enjoy the exhibitions and light fare available at Heidi's Place.