Aspen alum Zlatomir Fung is the youngest cellist to win First Prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition. At only 26, he has already established himself as one of the finest musicians of his generation. Here he'll be showcased in Elgar's rhapsodic and richly noble Cello Concerto, the composer's last major work. Elgar's wife Alice was at his side at the premiere, but died six months later. Elgar's creative spark never returned, and the remaining fourteen years of his life produced no works of consequence. This haunting piece was Elgar's response to the devastation and loss of the First World War, and has become one of the most popular concertos in the repertoire.

When Vaughan Williams was asked to pick a work of his for a concert celebrating his 80th birthday, he chose the Fifth Symphony The work is dedicated "Without permission and with the sincerest of flattery to Jean Sibelius, whose great example is worthy of imitation." Already in his late 60s and early 70s when he composed the work, he was aware that he might not be able to complete his then-unfinished opera The Pilgrims’s Progress. Not wanting to waste good material, he used fragments from the opera as a basis for the symphony. It's arguably the most beautiful of his symphonies, and when it was premiered in 1943, was welcomed for the consolation and hope it offered during the Second World War.

This all-English program opens with Steven Stucky's 1991 transcription of three of Purcell's pieces heard at the funeral of Mary II, who died of smallpox in 1694. In Stucky's works, he didn’t "try to achieve a pure, musicological reconstruction but, on the contrary, to regard Purcell's music, which I love deeply, through the lens of three hundred intervening years. Thus, although most of this version is straightforward orchestration of the Purcell originals, there are moments when Purcell drifts out of focus."

Hear the graceful melodies and sophisticated harmonies of three English masters, and thrill to the virtuosity of cellist Zlatomir Fung!