On Saturday Cairo Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hisham Gabr, will give a concert dubbed "Oriental Flair". The concert will also include A Cappella Choir with choirmaster Maya Gvineria.

The programme will open with Borodin's Polovtsian Dances, which represent a fragment of the exotic scene in Alexander Borodin's opera Prince Igor.

Then the orchestra will move to Rachmaninoff's famed Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No 2. Accessible by all audiences, the piano concerto is one of the most beloved compositions for piano and upon its release it brought the composer major recognition.

At the same time, the concerto carries several beautiful melodies which can be appreciated by listeners of different generations and preferences. Pop music followers will find the concerto second movement's theme is borrowed into a verse of Celine Dion's 1996 song All by Myself (originally a 1975 song by American artist Eric Carmen).

The piano soloist of the evening will be Elena Dzamashvili.

The second half of the concert will include Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's "Antar" Symphonic Suite op. 9. 

Though called a symphonic suite, the composer included the words "Second Symphony" in a parenthetical subtitle of the composition's first edition. This description was dropped in the following publications of the work when the composer had decided that "Antar was a poem, suite, fairy tale, story, anything you like, but not a symphony." 

Antar, a desert recluse, was based on an Arabian tale by Senkovsky. Through the orient-inspired tales and melodies, and topped with great orchestration, the composition takes the listener on a journey through the themes that tackle the boundless desert, furious winds, love, pleasures and power.

Programme:
Saturday 18 June, 9.30pm
Cairo Opera House's main hall, Zamalek, Cairo

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