PYP PREMIERES WOMAN COMPOSER LERA AUERBACH’S SYMPHONY NO. 1, “CHIMERA” TO CLOSE OUT 95TH SEASON

Posted on March 19, 2019

PYP premieres woman composer Lera Auerbach’s Symphony No. 1, “Chimera” to close out 95th season (Click for full press release)

AUERBACH & MARTINŮ | Sunday, May 5, 2019 | 4:00 PM | Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

PORTLAND, OR – Hearing is believing! Portland Youth Philharmonic concludes its landmark 95th season of concerts on Sunday, May 5, 2019, with multi-talented Russian-American composer Lera Auerbach’s Symphony No. 1, “Chimera.” The seven powerful movements of “Chimera” were first performed in 2006. PYP will present the West Coast premiere of Auerbach’s work, sponsored in part by the Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy.

“Nothing appears quite what it seems in Auerbach’s world,” writes Pwyll ap Siôn, Professor of Music at the UK’s Bangor University, about her work. “Her aim is often to find beauty ‘in the most unexpected places.’” She is known for abstract titles and compositions.

Born in Soviet Russia, Auerbach’s life in art began in 1977, with a song about death composed when she was 4 only years old. Since then, she has created a world of acclaimed piano performances, sculptures, paintings, and musical works of every conceivable genre. The last two movements of “Chimera” are a tone poem entitled “Icarus,” based on the Greek myth of the young man who ignored his father’s warnings, flying higher than his earthly wings could carry him, and crashing into the sea. “What makes this myth so touching is Icarus’s impatience of the heart, his wish to reach the unreachable, the intensity of the ecstatic brevity of his flight, and inevitability of his fall,” Auerbach writes of the piece.

Tickets to the May 5th performance start at $5 and are on sale now at www.portlandyouthphil.org/concerts.