‘National Orchestra of Belgium’

The Russian bass Piotr Migunov is an accomplished singer who, amongst others, regularly performs at the Bolshoi theatre. This evening he is giving a solo performance in Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death. Shostakovich, who idolised his predecessor, wrote his own orchestration for it. The Fifteenth, from the self-same Shostakovich is also on the programme. It was to be his final one. After a series of programmed symphonies it was the first in a long succession which relied on pure musical motifs. Halil (Hebrew for ‘flute’) is a concerto for flute and orchestra that Leonard Bernstein dedicated to a flautist friend who died young. This evening the première of a new work by the promising Belgian composer Frederik Neyrinck is also on the programme.