(Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)
These two are inseparable. It's like The Parent Trap, only without identical twins or Lindsay Lohan. Yefim Bronfman and BF4E&E Esa-Pekka Salonen’s untitled Piano Concerto CD is ready to drop! The Piano Concerto was originally commissioned by the NY Philharmonic, but Salonen wrote it with Bronfman in mind, his longtime collaborator who shares Esa-Pek's razor-sharp wit.
With composer-conductor Esa-Pek directing Bronfman, the piece clocks in at 20 minutes for all three movements. To fill the minutes, the new release also contains Esa-Pek compositions, Helix & Dichotomie.
Opera Chic was there live in the house for the exciting February 2007 world premiere with the NY Philharmonic. The work was later played in Chicago's Orchestra Hall, and then went to Los Angeles where it was recorded live by Deutsche Grammophon in 2008.
OC still considers herself lucky for catching the world preimere, which she described as, "This concerto was incredibly difficult, layered, complex, and furious. Salonen has got mad money $kill$. It's was a mixture of trippy, space-age, Wagnerian, Shostakovichian, new-age motifs."
