Carmen, Queens, and Pictures at an Exhibition

Nashville Symphony | Anna Rakitina, conductor | Karen Slack, soprano 

Guest conductor Anna Rakitina and soprano Karen Slack combine for a program that celebrates women's voices in music.

African Queens, co-commissioned by the Nashville Symphony, features new music by seven of today's most acclaimed composers, each painting a portrait of historic African queens largely unknown to Western audiences. 

Opening the concert, another strong female figure from music history appears in the form of Carmen. Georges Bizet's masterpiece, and the Suite drawn from it,give orchestra and audience a flavor of Spain of yesteryear. 

The program concludes with one of the most popular works of the orchestral repertoire: Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. The work was written as an act of devotion for his friend Viktor Hartmann, a painter who died suddenly at 39, and whose images might have vanished entirely had Mussorgsky not walked through his memorial gallery and refused to let them disappear. Ravel's dazzling orchestration makes every canvas blaze.