Violinist Chee-Yun reunites with Westmoreland Symphony for 'Nuevo Tango'

Violinist Chee-Yun will return to the Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra to perform Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla’s tango masterpiece, “The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires.”

The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in The Palace Theatre in downtown Greensburg.

The whole program has a Latin inspiration,” said artistic director Daniel Meyer, who will conduct.

“Nuevo Tango” also will feature the symphony playing works by two Spanish composers — Juan Arriaga’s Symphony in D Major and Joaquin Turina’s “The Bullfighter’s Prayer.”

Piazzolla was the premiere composer of “nuevo tango,” a new style that transformed the genre in the 1950s by introducing new instruments such as the saxophone and electric guitar, along with new forms of harmonic and melodic structure.

The symphony will play an arrangement of the piece for solo violin and strings.

“Chee-Yun has made this one of her signature pieces,” Meyer said. “In fact, she just performed it two or three weeks ago with an orchestra in South Korea.”

Born Kim Chee Yun in South Korea in 1970, internationally acclaimed musician Chee-Yun first performed in public at age 8 in Seoul. She studied at the Juilliard School in New York City and had her New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall.

“She’s performed with us before, and when I announced to the orchestra that she was coming back, they all gave a big ovation,” Meyer said. “They know what a fine player she is, and she really owns this piece. It’s going to be a thrill to have her back.”

Chee-Yun’s violin was made in 1669 by luthier Francesco Ruggieri in the northern Italian city of Cremona.

Though “The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires” is influenced by the figuration of tango music, Meyer said, “It also has a few little nods to Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ — little snippets, little references to the original that everybody knows and loves.”

“What’s really interesting to remember is that the seasons in South America are flipped, so when it’s winter here, it’s summer there,” Meyer said. “(Piazzolla) does the same thing. He puts little whiffs of winter into the summer movement and so on and so forth. It’s really ingenious how he embeds that into the music.”

Arriaga has been called the Spanish Mozart.

“He only lived to age 21, and this was one of the last pieces he wrote, so he was still very young composer but already showing a lot of promise,” Meyer said. “His work has all the beauty, the melody and the classical structure of a Mozart or Beethoven symphony, but also the lyricism, kind of the singing lines, that you might find in Schubert.”

Arriaga’s Symphony in D Major is seldom played, Meyer said.

”I don’t believe it’s ever been played in the Westmoreland Symphony’s history, so I’m excited to introduce this particular work,” he said.

Although “The Bullfighter’s Prayer” originally was written for string quartet, the Westmoreland Symphony version will feature the whole string orchestra.

“It has all the expectation and anxiety of a bullfighter about to take the ring, but there are also some quintessentially Spanish gestures and rhythms,” Meyer said.

Tickets for “Nuevo Tango” are $18-$63. A live stream option is $20 per household.

For tickets and more information, call 724-837-1850 or visit westmorelandsymphony.org.