Program

Romantic Piano Concerto (Michigan premiere)
Joseph Marx 1882-1964
     1. Lebhaft (Allegro moderato)
     2. Nicht zu langsam (Andante affettuoso)
     3. Sehr lebhaft (Allegro molto)

Mikhail Korzhev, piano

The Montgomery Variations
Margaret Allison Bonds (1913-1972)
     1. Decision
     2. Prayer Meeting
     3. March
     4. Dawn in Dixie
     5. One Sunday in the South
     6. Lament
     7. Benediction

Danzón No. 2
Arturo Márquez (b. 1950)
(Audience Choice 2026) 

Learn more about the music…

We will be hosting not only the Classical Chat series at Freedom Village, but also Pre-Concert Talks!  Details below:

Classical Chats at Freedom Village:  These informative and fun talks are led by Johannes Müller-Stosch and take place at 3 pm on the Thursday before each Classics concert.  (Freedom Village, 6th Floor Auditorium, 145 Columbia Ave.)

Pre-Concert Talks:  These talks, led by Johannes Müller-Stosch and Amanda Dykhouse, are online under the "Pre-Concert Talk" Tab.  

New to the Symphony?  Check out the Frequently Asked Question page…

Romantic Piano Concerto in E Major
Joseph Marx 

Born: May 11, 1882, Graz 
Died: September 3, 1964, Graz
Written: 1919-20 
Premiered: March 4, 1926, Vienna 
Approximate Duration: 41 minutes 
Instrumentation: 3 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 French horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, percussion (tambourine, triangle, xylophone), 2 harps, celeste, strings 

Joseph Marx was born in Graz, Austria. His mother taught him piano at an early age, and he taught himself how to play violin and cello. He attended Graz University. Although his father wanted him to study law, Marx initially focused on a Ph.D. in philosophy. When he turned more fully to musical studies it led to a break with his family, who forbade him from pursuing a career in music. 

Marx became a key figure in the emerging musical languages of the early twentieth century.  As a composer, Marx was concerned about upholding the Viennese classical tradition, both in the forms he used, such as waltzes, and the use of Austrian folk music. He also included Impressionist, Slavonic, and Italian elements. 

As a faculty member and eventual director of the Vienna Music Academy, Marx influenced many musicians and composers, teaching over 1300 students from around the world. He was also one of the most prominent music critics in Vienna, particularly in the 1930s, publishing influential books on music theory, including an important scholarly study of tonality in which he coined the term “atonal.”  Following the rise of the Nazi regime, Marx had to resign his posts, instead becoming a speaker on Viennese cultural topics. However, he found various ways to secretly help Jewish families. While Marx was regarded as a father figure for conservative, tonal music, his musical legacy fell mostly out of notice due to the cultural and political upheaval that disrupted his career.

Neglected for many decades, Marx’s Romantic Piano Concerto is one of his most ambitious orchestral works, and is now reemerging along with many of his other compositions.  Marx had a gift for writing both art songs and song-like music, and his shining lyricism creates a late Romantic cinematic mood, comparable to Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos in its character and texture.  The first movement opens with an orchestral introduction.  The movement is melodic and rhapsodic, balancing passion and quiet reflection, the piano and orchestra joined in dialogue as equal partners.  The pianist has many opportunities to display virtuosic fireworks, but those moments always support the overall emotional texture–they aren’t just for display.  The second movement is quiet and intimate, with muted strings and quiet woodwinds.  In this dreamlike environment, the solo piano is tender and introspective.  The last movement is energetic and rhythmic, bursting with life and hope, culminating in an exuberant closing. This concert marks the Michigan premiere of Marx’s Romantic Piano Concerto, and the Holland Symphony Orchestra is honored to participate in this twenty-first century revival of Marx’s work.

To listen to the Marx concerto, click here.

The Montgomery Variations
Margaret Bonds

Born: March 3, 1913, Chicago, IL
Died: April 26, 1972, Los Angeles, CA
Written: 1964 
Published: 2020
Approximate Duration: 25 minutes 
Instrumentation: 3 flutes (one doubling alto flute and piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 French horns, 3 trumpets, timpani, percussion (cymbals, log drum, suspended cymbal, tambourine, triangle, woodblock), harp, strings 

Margaret Bonds was born and raised on the south side of Chicago.  Her mother was a church musician and her father was a physician who was also active in the Civil Rights Movement.  Her childhood home was often frequented by musicians and artists, also serving as a gathering place for people striving for racial justice.  Her first music teacher was her mother.  Margaret wrote her first composition at age five.  As a teen, she studied with Florence Price and went on to Northwestern University, but because of her race, she was not allowed to use the university library or many other facilities. Bonds relied on the Evanston Public Library, where she became acquainted with the poetry of Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes, particularly “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.”  She set many of his poems to music.  When they two met several years later, she said “we were like brother and sister, like blood relatives.”  Margaret went on to win the National Wanamaker Foundation Prize for one of her compositions and was the first Black musician to perform with the Chicago Symphony.  She eventually studied at Julliard and lived in New York City, where she worked at a church and formed a chamber music society to feature works by black classical composers.  

Bonds wrote The Montgomery Variations in 1964, in response to the 1963 firebombings of Birmingham, Alabama’s 16th Street Baptist Church, in which dozens of church members were injured and four young girls were killed.  She wrote her own program notes:

“The Montgomery Variations” is a group of freestyle variations based on the Negro Spiritual theme, “I want Jesus to Walk with Me.” The treatment suggests the manner in which Bach constructed his partitas – a bold statement of the theme, followed by variations of the theme in the same key – major and minor.

The words are as follows.

I want Jesus to walk with me. / All along my pilgrim journey, / Lord, I want Jesus to walk with me.

In my trials, Lord, walk with me. / When my heart is almost breaking, / Lord, I want Jesus to walk with me.

When I’m in trouble, Lord, walk with me. / When my head is bowed in sorrow, / Lord, I want Jesus to walk with me.

Because of the personal meanings of the Negro spiritual themes, Margaret Bonds always avoids over-development of the melodies.

“The Montgomery Variations” were written after the composer’s visit to Montgomery, Alabama, and the surrounding area in 1963.

Decision
Under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr. and SCLC, Negroes in Montgomery decided to boycott the bus company and to fight for their rights as citizens.

Prayer Meeting
True to custom, prayer meetings precede their action. Prayer meetings start quietly with humble petitions to God. During the course of the meeting, members seized with religious fervor, shout, and dance. Oblivious to their fellow worshippers they exhibit their love of God and their Faith in Deliverance by gesticulation, clapping and beating their feet.

March
The Spirit of the Nazarene marching with them, the Negroes of Montgomery walked to their work rather than be segregated on the buses. The entire world, symbolically with them, marches.

Dawn in Dixie
Dixie, the home of the Camellias known as “pink perfection,” magnolias, jasmine and Spanish moss, awakened to the fact that something new was happening in the South.

One Sunday in the South
Children were in Sunday School learning about Jesus, the Prince of Peace. Southern “die-hards” planted a bomb and several children were killed.

Lament
The world was shaken by the cruelty of the Sunday School bombing. Negroes, as usual, leaned on their Jesus to carry them through this crisis of grief and humiliation.

Benediction
A benign God, Father and Mother to all people, pours forth Love to His children – the good and the bad alike.

To watch a video of The  Montgomery Variations, click here

Danzón No. 2
Arturo Márquez

Born: December 20, 1950, Álamos, Sonora, Mexico
Composed: 1994, commissioned by the National Autonomous University of Mexico
Premiered: 1994
Approximate Duration: 10 minutes
Instrumentation: 2 flutes (one doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 French horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, suspended cymbals, snare drum, güiro, claves, 3 tomtoms, piano, strings

Arturo Márquez is one of Mexico’s most prominent living composers.  He studied at the Conservatory of Music of Mexico, at the California Institute of the Arts, and in Paris.  He was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship and numerous grants and awards from both the Mexican and French governments, which enabled him to visit and study many diverse places and their music.  Recently, Márquez has dedicated himself to researching the folk traditions of nearly every region in Mexico.  He has become passionate about many traditional genres, and uses his compositions “to pay tribute to them in the concert halls.”  

Márquez has used the danzón form on numerous occasions.  This genre of dance music traces its roots to nineteenth century Cuba.  It describes a dance step involving small movements of feet and hips in a tight square of floor space.  According to Márquez, “The danzón is today still very popular in Mexico.  In Veracruz, there are special town squares where it is still danced two or three times a week.  It’s a very strong tradition.  In Mexico City, there are special dance halls where only danzón is danced.”  He wrote the following description of this danzón:

“The idea of writing the Danzón 2 originated in 1993 during a trip to Malinalco with the painter Andrés Fonseca and the dancer Irene Martínez, both of whom [have] a special passion for the danzón, which they were able to transmit to me from the beginning, and also during later trips to Veracruz and visits to the Colonia Salon in Mexico City. From these experiences onward, I started to learn the danzón’s rhythms, its form, its melodic outline, and to listen to the old recordings by Acerina Mariano Merceron and his Danzonera Orchestra. I was fascinated and I started to understand that the apparent lightness of the danzón is only like a visiting card for a type of music full of sensuality and qualitative seriousness, a genre which old Mexican people continue to dance with a touch of nostalgia and a jubilant escape towards their own emotional world; we can fortunately still see this in the embrace between music and dance that occurs in the State of Veracruz and in the dance parlors of Mexico City. “Danzón 2 … endeavors to get as close as possible to the dance, to its nostalgic melodies, to its wild rhythms, and although it violates its intimacy, its form and its harmonic language, it is a very personal way of paying my respects and expressing my emotions towards truly popular music.” 

The explosive, driving rhythm and melodic inventiveness of Danzón No. 2 have made it the most frequently performed contemporary Mexican work.  The piece showcases vibrant, lively brass, suave woodwinds and driving percussion.  Its Latin energy and character-driven dance rhythms are reminiscent of Mexican street music.  The music starts with swaying melodies, quickens into sharp, staccato effervescence, calms into a slow, easy tango, then finishes in a dramatic climax. Márquez’s Danzón No. 2 was selected by HSO audiences as our 2026 Audience Choice for this concert’s program.

To listen to Danzón No. 2, click here.

Mikhail Korzhev, a pianist that “projects strength, atmosphere and the ability to tangle even the knottiest passages…” (International Record Review) is equally active as a solo recitalist, a performer with various chamber groups, a soloist with orchestras, and as a recording artist. His latest CD recordings, the two volumes of a Complete Piano Concertos by Ernst Krenek in collaboration with English Symphony Orchestra and Kenneth Woods were released by Toccata Classics in 2016 and 2017 to enthusiastic reviews in Gramophone, Diapason and other publications, made it to the “want list” of Fanfare magazine, became one of “10 Best Contemporary Records of the Year” by The Times (London), and in December 2017 made it to the list of “Top 10 Best Classical Records of the Year” by Forbes magazine. In September 2017 Korzhev became a recipient of a prestigious Anassilaos Prize, the annual award for the achievements in Arts and Sciences given by the local government of the province of Calabria (Italy).

Korzhev collaborated with several distinguished conductors: Sergiu Commissiona, Carlo Ponti Jr. and others, his chamber music collaborations include performing with soloists of Russian National Orchestra, Mladi Chamber Orchestra, Lyris String Quartet, and members of St. Petersburg and Tokyo String Quartets among others. His collaborative work was highly appreciated by Eugenia Zukerman, Richard Stolzman, Oleh Krysa and other noted musicians. Korzhev’s performances received a high critical acclaim from American and European press: ”The young Russian pianist… displayed a notable technical mastery which allowed for passionate moments of ardent lyricism as well as wonderful purity and fluency…” (Momento Sera, Rome).”Korzhev belongs to that exclusive club of super musicians…he already performs like a keyboard legend…he is a major talent.” (Salt Lake Tribune).

His particular interest in contemporary music has lead Korzhev to participate in the Virginia Waring International Piano Competition in 2005, which had the emphasis on the music of Ernst Krenek. As a winner of that competition Korzhev gave a recital in the Vienna’s Konzerthaus about which the Wiener Zeitung wrote: “Korzhev obviously has a lot of affection for Krenek’s style… brings out well the dramatic qualities of his music…” Following the success of his Vienna debut Korzhev recorded a CD of Krenek’s piano music, released by Phoenix Edition/Naxos in 2008 that became an instant top seller and received several very enthusiastic reviews in the press.

Korzhev’s discography also includes three CD recordings featuring compositions for solo piano and chamber works by a prominent English composer Gerard Schurmann (in collaboration with Alyssa Park and Lyris string quartet) and a compilation of 40 classical standards for the online music library Megatrax.com.  

Korzhev combines his performing career with teaching. He taught at University of Southern California. Currently he is on the faculty of California State University at Fullerton and Chapman University. Since 2008 Korzhev is the faculty member at Beverly Hills International Music Festival. In the summer of 2009 he taught a summer course at the Bosendorfer Piano Academy in Vienna, Austria.

Korzhev holds a doctorate in piano performance from University of Southern California, where he studied with Daniel Pollack. His previous teachers include Alexander Satz and Vera Khoroshina at Moscow Conservatory College.