The UGA Performing Arts Center will present The Knights chamber orchestra with guest violinist Gil Shaham Feb. 21 at 3 p.m. in Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall. The program will feature the new “Concerto for Violin” composed especially for Shaham by Jonathan Leshnoff. The concert also will include Pablo de Sarasate’s Navarra, with Shaham and Knights co-artistic director Colin Jacobsen as soloists, and Beethoven’s Eroica.
Tickets for concert are $25-$60 and are discounted for UGA students. Tickets can be purchased at the Performing Arts Center box office, online at pac.uga.edu or by calling 706-542-4400.
“In recent years, The Knights have been fortunate to tour North America in various shapes and sizes with incredible guests. For our return to UGA, we are thrilled to have with us the incomparable Gil Shaham. Gil’s evident joy in the infinite possibilities of the violin inspires us to see the orchestra as an instrument capable of breathing as one-of singing, dancing, crying, laughing, wherever the moment leads us,” said Eric Jacobsen, conductor and co-artistic director of The Knights.
Shaham has been called “the outstanding American violinist of his generation,” by Time magazine. He has more than two dozen concerto and solo CDs to his name, including bestsellers that have topped the charts in the U.S. and abroad, earning multiple Grammys, a Grand Prix du Disque, Diapason d’Or and Gramophone Editor’s Choice awards.
The Knights chamber orchestra is an orchestral collective, flexible in size and repertory, dedicated to transforming the concert experience. The orchestra evolved from late-night chamber music reading parties with friends at the home of violinist Colin Jacobsen and cellist Eric Jacobsen. The Jacobsen brothers serve as artistic directors of The Knights with Eric as conductor.
The Knights’ Hodgson Hall concert will be recorded for national broadcast on American Public Media’s Performance Today, heard by 1.4 million listeners across the county.
A pre-concert lecture will be offered 45 minutes prior to the performance.