Kabalevsky

Overture, Colas Breugnon

Prokofiev

Sinfonia Concertante for cello and orchestra

Shostakovich

The Age of Gold, Suite

Khachaturian

Spartacus, Suite

Vasily Petrenko

conductor

Alban Gerhardt

cello

‘Football is the ballet of the masses’ said Dmitri Shostakovich, and you won’t find anyone here disagreeing. But whatever your team allegiances, this concert is packed with tunes that everyone can cheer – whether Shostakovich’s outrageously tuneful football ballet The Age of Gold, the physical comedy of Kabalevsky’s Colas Breugnon, or the hard-hitting action and soaring romance of Khachaturian’s Spartacus. It’s another zinger of a concert from Vasily Petrenko’s native Russia – with, at its heart, Alban Gerhardt’s performance of Prokofiev’s Sinfonia Concertante. Because a truly epic cello concerto demands a truly great cellist.