Stravinsky: Fairy Tales

Igor Stravinsky is renowned for his legacy of glittering fairy tales in treasured favourites such as Petrushka and The Firebird. Another favourite is the ballet Pulcinella, a lovable melange of Baroque theatricality, heard here in its concert suite form. The other works in this programme are surprisingly less known: the luminous and symphonic Song of the Nightingale, and The Fairy's Kiss based on Tchaikovsky's music, are both derived from stories by Hans Christian Andersen. An astonishing rarity, The Faun and the Shepherdess is an ancient Greek tale that was Stravinsky's romantically sensual gift to his young bride.

Multiple GRAMMY-winning conductor JoAnn Falletta serves as music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) and music director laureate of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. She has guest-conducted many of the most prominent orchestras in America, Canada, Europe, Asia and South America. As music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, Falletta became the first woman to lead a major American orchestra. Her discography includes over 135 titles, and she is a leading recording artist for Naxos. Her GRAMMY-winning Naxos recordings include Richard Danielpour's The Passion of Yeshua (8.559885-86) and John Corigliano's Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan (8.559331), both with the BPO, and Kenneth Fuchs' Spiritualist with the London Symphony Orchestra (8.559824).