Discovery Ensemble Presents A Spring Afternoon Concert featuring Schoenberg, Beethoven and Schumann

BOSTON - March 22, 2013 - PRLog -- "Sometimes a concert is so good it seems magical.  Practically perfect.  Technical polish.  Not a problem for these youthful professionals, an ensemble with refined, beautifully balanced strings and scintillating winds."

-Lloyd Schwartz, Boston Phoenix

Boston, MA--Courtney Lewis and Discovery Ensemble will present A Spring Afternoon Concert featuring Schoenberg, Beethoven and Schumann on Sunday, April 14 at 3:00 P.M. at Sanders Theatre, 45 Quincy Street, in Cambridge.  In addition, a Musical Conversation hosted by Classical New England's Brian McCreath with conductor Courtney Lewis will take place prior to the concert, beginning at 7:00 P.M. on the Sanders Theatre Stage.

Discovery Ensemble, comprised of 50 exceptional professional musicians in their twenties and early thirties, likes to present novel and creative programming and this concert again is no exception.  The gorgeous and strangely disturbing Second Chamber Symphony by Schoenberg opens Discovery Ensemble’s final concert of the season.  It is a mystery why this haunting and accessible work is so little known.  Clearing the air of the tragic weight of the Schoenberg, Northern Irish pianist Michael McHale then joins the orchestra for Beethoven’s sun-drenched, apollonian Fourth Piano Concerto.  And to conclude the program is Schumann’s mighty Fourth Symphony, whose four classically-framed movements are conceived as if in one continuous breath of high Romanticism.

"I am excited to be presenting pianist Michael McHale in Boston at this concert.  We both grew up in Belfast and are very close in age.  Michael was a year ahead of me at University of Cambridge, and we played chamber music together back in my clarinet days," said Courtney Lewis.

Belfast-born pianist Michael McHale has established himself as one of the leading Irish pianists of his generation.  Since completing his studies at University of Cambridge and the Royal Academy of Music he has developed a busy international career as a solo recitalist, concerto soloist and chamber musician. Michael has performed at many important musical centres including Suntory Hall, Tokyo, Lincoln Center, New York, Konzerthaus, Berlin, Pesti Vigadó, Budapest, and the Ushuaia and Tanglewood Festivals and for TV and radio broadcasts throughout Europe and Asia as well as North and South America.  His début solo album The Irish Piano was released in 2012 on the RTÉ lyric fm label and it was selected as "CD of the Week" by Norman Lebrecht who described it as “scintillating . . . fascinating from start to stop."

Reserved seat tickets for this concert concert are available now at $40, $32 and $20 at http://www.discoveryensemble.com, at the Harvard Box office [website https://www.boxoffice.harvard.edu/Online/] or by calling 617-496-2222.  Tickets for this Sanders Theatre concert are available at the Harvard Box Office Booth, located at 1350 Massachusetts Avenue in the Holyoke Center Arcade.  Harvard Box Office hours are Tuesday through Sunday from 12:00 noon to 6:00 P.M.  The box office is closed on Mondays and some holidays.  Tickets for students and seniors with identification will be available at a discount of $10.00 in all price ranges.  Go to http://www.discoveryensemble.com for more information.  Sanders Theatre is wheelchair accessible and there is free parking at the Broadway Garage which is located on Felton Street, between Broadway and Cambridge Streets.  Patrons tell the attendant that they are attending a Sanders Theatre event and they receive a swipe ticket which they will use to get back into the garage after the show, and which they will use to exit.

Sunday, April 14, 2013 at 3:00 P.M.

[Musical Conversation, 2:00 P.M.]

Sanders Theatre, Cambridge, 45 Quincy Street, Cambridge

Schoenberg:  Second Chamber Symphony
Beethoven:  Piano Concerto No. 4, Michael McHale, piano
Schumann:  Symphony No. 4

Tickets:  $40, $32 and $20