Concert violinist Anne Akiko Meyers played with the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras, was the top-selling classical instrumentalist of 2014 and will bring her talents to Syracuse on Friday.

Meyers will perform award-winning composer Mason Bates’s new concerto at 8 p.m. on Friday in The Oncenter Crouse Hinds Theater as part of the Symphoria Masterworks.

The violinist rose to fame in her early childhood, playing at the Emmys and with the Philharmonic orchestras by the age of 12. She has more than 30 albums, two of which debuted at No.1 on the United States Billboard Charts. She is known for her pure sound, passion-filled performances and poetic interpretations, according to Symphoria’s website.

She will perform “Violin Concerto,” which was written and commissioned for her in 2012 by Mason Bates, who is the second most-performed living composer in the country. It has grown in popularity over the last few years, making its way around to the major orchestras in the United States, said Jon Garland, orchestra musician and founding member of Symphoria.

“And we thought it was something worth exploring here as well,” Garland said.

Symphoria was created in late 2012 after the bankruptcy of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra.

“There were all sorts of different ideas about what a new orchestra might look like,” Garland said. “The musicians had a path that they thought was good, the university had a path and there were others who had different ideas. Symphoria is a result of all those groups coming together and agreeing on a single way forward for a professional orchestra in Syracuse.”

Created as a nonprofit organization, it was an effort to connect members of the Syracuse community with orchestral and ensemble performances by holding more than 50 concerts annually in theaters and other public venues, such as churches, libraries and parks.

The Masterworks’ series include established artists performing symphonic masterpieces from the 18th century to the 21st century. Garland said that, when creating the program, the orchestra wanted to make sure it had a diversity in different kinds of programming and have enough types of music to appeal to a wide range of people.

Meyers’s show will be the opening of this year’s series, which includes seven other performances by popular classical musicians.

Among the reasons why Garland chose open this year’s program was her positive experience with the orchestra two seasons ago and a desire to feature Bates’s music.

“We thought she was a big hit. It seemed like the audience had really connected with what she was doing, so it was kind of the combination of the two things,” Garland said. “We were looking for something that would be a good opportunity to showcase Bates’s work, and the piece was written for Anne Akiko Meyers, so it just seemed like that was a great connection.”

The show will conclude with the Symphoria orchestra performing the folk-inspired Symphony No. 9 by Czech composer Antonín Dvořák. Also known as the New World Symphony, it is Dvořák’s most popular piece and is considered one of the most popular symphonies of all time.

Published on September 20, 2017 at 9:03 pm

Contact Shannon: snstubbs@syr.edu