SWAMPSCOTT — The North Shore Philharmonic Orchestra (NSPO) will have its annual winter concert on Feb. 26 at 3 p.m. at Swampscott High School.
The orchestra will be performing Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien. There will also be a solo performance from Adrian Jojatu of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto.
NSPO Music Director Robert Lehmann said Shostakovich’s Symphony has “vigor, passion, melody, and triumphal ending” in an NSPO press release. He also commented on the political significance of the piece.
“The symphony contains the composer’s ‘secretly overt’ message,” Lehmann said. “Shostakovich had earned the ire of the Soviet government, including Joseph Stalin himself, for the composition in 1934 of the opera ‘Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District’, which featured a racy plot and daring musical score.”
After Stalin condemned the opera and Soviet critics derided Shostakovich, the composer experienced a major moral problem, according to the press release. Shostakovich struggled to find a way to reintegrate himself into Soviet artistic life without compromising his personal values.
Shostakovich responded to this quandary, the press release said, by writing the Fifth Symphony. He publicly described the piece, which was well-received by the Politburo, as “an artist’s reply to just criticism.”
“Inwardly, the Symphony evokes the despair that Shostakovich shared with many of his countrymen of life under Stalin,” the press release said.
Jojatu was formerly the principal bassoonist of the Boston Pops Orchestra and has performed all over the U.S. and Europe, according to the press release.
“He is a graduate of the Academy of Music in Bucharest and earned former Assistant Principal Bassoonist of the Radio Chamber Orchestra of Bucharest,” the press release said. “He has performed in New England with the Boston Pops, Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Modern Orchestra, Boston Classical Orchestra, Indian Hill Orchestra and the Rhode Island Symphony.”
While 2023 marks 75 years since the start of the NSPO, it is only the 74th concert season because the Orchestra lost the entire 2020-2021 season.
“This is an odd situation,” said NSPO Board of Directors President Robert Marra. “This normally would have been the orchestra’s 75th anniversary, but it’s only the it’s only the 74th season because we missed the season because of COVID.”
The NSPO is mostly filled with volunteer musicians and aims to offer quality, affordable music to communities north of Boston, the press release said.
“The Orchestra strives to develop, train and provide opportunities for young and amateur musicians, while providing a large range of programs covering the full range of symphonic and pops repertoire for a diverse public,” the press release said.
Tickets for the winter concert can be bought at www.nspo.org or at the door on the day of the concert.
