Peta Stewart
Fitting the CPO into his schedule has to be well planned, since Daniel Boico, guest conductor with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra for three of four concerts in the autumn season beginning March 30, is super busy.
He came back to Cape Town after conducting and teaching at University of Indiana at Bloomington in February and going through Durban for two weeks with the KZNPO, and leaves Cape Town for a debut with the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan in May, plus a tour of Germany and Italy with the Nürnberger Symphoniker in June.
Boico is happy to be back with the CPO, and happy to be presenting some works that are new to CPO or seldom heard. They include Mahler’s Symphony no 1, Bartok Concerto for Orchestra and the orchestrations by Respighi of Cinq Etudes-Tableaux by Rachmaninov, all large works with Mahler in particular requiring extra strings.
“I was blown away by the colours of the orchestra”
Boico, who was born in Israel to Russian musician parents, was raised in Paris, lived and studied in America, studied in Russia with legendary pedagogue Ilya Musin, and now lives in Stellenbosch, has been seen in the best places. He has conducted the New York Philharmonic in what is now David Geffen Hall, replacing an ill former music director Kurt Masur at short notice. He has also conducted, for instance, the Royal Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, and worked in Chicago as assistant to music director Daniel Barenboim and guest conductors Pierre Boulez and Zubin Mehta.
He studied at the University of Wisconsin, planning at the time to pursue a career in singing. He was a lyric tenor, but it was conducting that he found he enjoyed even more. In his words, “I was blown away by the colours of the orchestra, the unlimited combinations of instruments, and I knew I had to do this.” He studied privately with Victor Yampolsky in Chicago. He then went to the St Petersburg Conservatory to study with Musin, where the “atmosphere of wonder” made him realize he had really made the right decision. Maybe it is the Russian blood, for he had been steeped in music making by his Russian parents, Fima Boico, who became concertmaster of Orchestre de Paris and is the second violinist of the Fine Arts Quartet, and his pianist mother, Vera Boico.
Boico’s career was just beginning. He was a finalist and prizewinner at the Prokofiev, Pedrotti, and Cadaques International Conducting Competitions and one engagement led to another. He has been music director at orchestras in America, taught, made several CDs, worked in music administration, planning and programming at the New York Philharmonic, with Barenboim in Chicago and with his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.
Fine Music Radio will broadcast Rodney Trudgeon’s People of Note with Boico on Sunday, March 26 at 6pm, repeated on the day of the concert, March 30, just after the 1pm news.
There will be pre-concert talks by Rodney Trudgeon open to ticket holders at 7.15pm on the night of the concerts; dress rehearsals at 11 at the City Hall on the day are open; entrance via Longmarket Street. R50. Soloists in Boico’s concerts are Danielle Akta (cello), David Nebel and Alexander Gilman (violin) and pianist Petronel Malan.
Concerts: 30 March, 6, 13 April 2017. Brandon Phillips will conduct the final concert on April 20 with Avigail Bushakevitz (violin)
Info: luvuyo@cpo.org.za
Book: http://online.computicket.com/web/event/autumn_symphony_season_concert_2/1106925258/0/77412038
WS
