The Virginia Symphony Orchestra will welcome this week a violinist who began studying at Budapest’s Franz Liszt Academy of Music at 10 years old.
Tamás Kocsis will perform the violin solo in Max Bruch’s Concerto for Violin No. 1 during the VSO’s performance 8 p.m. Thursday at CrossWalk Community Church, which formerly functioned as a music theater, in the Norge area of James City County.
“The Bruch is just a gem of the violin repertoire,” said JoAnn Falletta, VSO’s Grammy-winning music director. “It is the perfect concerto: not one note out of place. … He gives us emotion, pyrotechnics, and classical structure. This concerto has it all.”
Kocsis, a native of Hungary, made his debut on Hungarian radio at 11 years old, attended The Juilliard School in New York City and won the New York Artists International competition in 1995. At 43, he is considered the youngest representative of the Hungarian violin school, according to a news release from the VSO.
Falletta hand-selected Kocsis to be the soloist on the highly regarded violin concerto, as she does for all guests who perform with the orchestra.
VSO will perform three pieces Thursday in a show sponsored by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and Regent University. In addition to the Bruch, the Norfolk-based orchestra will perform Felix Mendelssohn’s Scottish and open the show with Stanford’s Irish Rhapsody No. 1, Op. 78.
Ticket prices range from $25 to $63, with $10 tickets available to those with student IDs. To purchase tickets, call 757-892-6366 or click here.
VSO will perform the same program 8 p.m. Saturday at Regent University in Virginia Beach.
