The San Antonio Philharmonic finally has a new home, and this weekend they’re showing it off in style with two concerts at the Scottish Rite Auditorium.
It’s “a building many San Antonians have never been inside,” said Music Director Jeffrey Kahane during a visit to our studios.
“It is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful buildings anywhere. You will never have heard the orchestra sound the way it will sound in this hall,” Kahane marveled. “The hall is a musical instrument, and this is one of the great ones.”
Nevertheless, the Scottish Rite Auditorium is a century old, and there are modifications needed to bring the building up to current code, ADA standards, and otherwise. The costs have been reported as north of $50 million.
“It is going to be undergoing a great deal of transformation in the years to come,” Kahane said.
The first concerts in the hall will feature pianist Natasha Paremski, who’ll be performing Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1.
“It’s a very underperformed, underrated, underexposed concerto,” Paremski said.
Rachmaninoff wrote the concerto in 1891, when he was still in his late teens. Both Paremski and Kahane praised the genius of the composer’s work even at this early stage of his career.
“The second movement is so touching, and it’s also so inventive. Even though it has shades of Tchaikovsky and a little bit of Scriabin as well, it’s very much his own. He’s already his own person,” Kahane said.
The concerts this weekend on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 at 7:30 p.m. also include Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, and “Chokfi’” by Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, which marks the San Antonio Philharmonic/Symphony’s first time performing music by a Native American composer. Kahane says the piece is about a rabbit, who is kind of a trickster character in Chickasaw mythologies.
To hear Natasha Paremski preview the concert on TPR’s beautiful Steinway piano, use the audio player at the top of this page. Details and tickets for the San Antonio Philharmonic's performances may be found on their website.
