This weekend’s set of Classical series concerts at the Oregon Symphony feature the Canadian violinist Karen Gomyo, who I had a chance to hear several times when she was still just on the cusp of a career, most recently when she came to play the Bruch G minor Violin Concerto with the OSO in 2002 under Norman Leyden. I believe that she also played at the Cascade Festival of Music shortly after she won the Young Concert Artists Auditions – just a week after her 15th birthday – in 1997. I remember being quite impressed with her then, and though she seems hardly to have aged in the intervening years, she has grown tremendously as an artist. This week she plays the fiendishly difficult First Violin Concerto of Sergei Prokofiev, which is also one of the most beautiful violin concertos there is. It’s worth noting that Gomyo plays the “Ex Foulis” Stradivarius (1703), which was purchased for her exclusive use by a private sponsor.
In this video, you can see her in rehearsal with Carlos Kalmar’s other main gig, the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago. If you look closely when the shot zooms in, you’ll notice our own Principal oboist Martin Hebert playing as acting principal oboe in the Grant Park Orchestra.
The concert also features returning Finnish guest conductor Pietari Inkinen, who last appeared with works of Stravinsky (the violin concerto), En Saga of Sibelius, and a Tchaikovsky work (possibly the 4th Symphony?). The other works on this week’s program are the lovely and delicately-scored Siegfried Idyll of Richard Wagner, and the lush and grand Second Symphony of Sibelius.