Event Calendar
MOZART, VIVALDI & MORE
Saturday, November 11, 2023, 7:30 pm
Subscriptions are on sale now.
Guitarist Petrit Çeku (Peh-Treet Check-oo), the 2011 winner of the prestigious Schadt String Competition, returns to Allentown. The Competition celebrates its 25th edition in February 2024. Mr. Ceku will perform two of the most popular guitar works in the repertoire: Antonio Vivaldi’s Guitar Concerto in D and Joaquin Rodrigo’s Fantasia para un gentilhombre. The Allentown Symphony will present the world premiere of Circus Fantasia, a work by new Composer in Residence Clarice Assad. Plus, perennial wedding favorite G.F. Handel’s “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” from Solomon. W. A. Mozart’s great Symphony No. 41 “Jupiter” was his last and remains his most popular. An instant hit from the beginning created anew in every performance since.
Diane Wittry, conductor
Petrit Çeku, guitar
HANDEL “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” from Solomon
VIVALDI Guitar Concerto in D
RODRIGO Fantasia para un gentilhombre
CLARICE ASSAD Circus Fantasia (World Premiere/ASO Commission)
MOZART Symphony No. 41 “Jupiter”
Petrit Çeku Bio
Petrit Çeku’s exquisite sensibility and expressiveness have attracted and engaged audiences worldwide. He has performed many recitals throughout the world and was a soloist with symphonic orchestras such as Baltimore Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Czech Chamber Philharmonic, Daejeon Philharmonic, State Hermitage Orchestra of St. Petersburg, Pannon Philharmonic and Zagreb Philharmonic. He collaborates regularly with the famed ensemble The Zagreb Soloists and is a founding member of Guitar Trio Elogio, established in 2008.
Hailed by Calgary Herald as “an effortless player, with a strong, projecting sound”, Çeku is the first prize winner of many international guitar competitions, including the most prestigious ones like Parkening (Malibu, USA), Schadt (Allentown, USA), Biasini (Bologna, Italy), and Pittaluga (Alessandria, Italy). He was the only classical music act in the 2018 Night of the Proms Tour with the Antwerpen Philharmonic conducted by Alexandra Arrieche, featuring pop music greats like Brian Ferry, Milow, Seal and Suzanne Vega.
Çeku graduated from the Zagreb Academy of Music in the class of Darko Petrinjak and at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore USA in the class of Manuel Barrueco. Petrit Çeku teaches Chamber Music for Guitar, a special graduate study dedicated to chamber music, at The University of Music and Performing Arts Graz in Austria. His recordings have been released by Naxos, BuntArt and Eudora records. Çeku’s record The Cello Suites, which includes all six cello suites by Bach was nominated for ICMA awards in the Baroque Music – Instrumental category. Recording sessions for this album were the subject of documentary film ‘Sarabande’ by the award-winning director Kaltrina Krasniqi. Continuing the collaboration with the filmmaker, Petrit Çeku later composed the original score for her feature film ‘Vera dreams of the sea’, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival 2021.
Petrit Çeku is a D’Addario artist and plays on a Ross Gutmeier guitar.