Joseph Bologne’s Symphonies Concertantes

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Michael Halasz conducts the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice, with soloists Pavla Honsová, Yury Revich, and Libor Ježek in the NAXOS album Saint-Georges: Symphonies Concertantes, playing Joseph Bologne’s Symphonie Concertante in C Major, Op. 9, No. 1; the Symphonie Concertante in A Major, Op. 9, No. 2; the Symphonie Concertante in F Major, Op. 10, No. 1; the Symphonie Concertante in A Major, Op. 10, No. 2, and the Symphony in G Major, Op. 11, No. 1 by Joseph Bologne.

Joseph Bologne was born to a wealthy plantation owner and an African slave in 1745 in the former French colony of Guadeloupe.At the age of seven, his father took him to France, where he was educated at the Académie royale polytechnique des armes et de l’équitation. Upon graduation he received the titles of Gendarme du roi and Chevalier de Saint-Georges. Bologne served as a colonel in the first all-black regiment in Europe. 

Today Joseph Bologne is remembered as the first classical composer of African ancestry and also as a noted conductor, violinist, and as a pioneering exponent of the symphonie concertante, a genre that combined the structural characteristics of both the Classical symphony and the 18th concerto grosso, and one that he successfully explored and imprinted with originality.

Michael Halasz leads the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice and soloists Pavla Honsová, Yury Revich, and Libor Ježek with a stylish command of Bologne’s charming music

Rafael de Acha     ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”