Incomparable concerto

Violinist Leila Josefowicz last played with the Spokane Symphony in 1998, as an enormously successful child prodigy just embarking on an adult career at age 21.

Now she’s back in Spokane having established an enviable career on the concert stage and in the recording studio.

Josefowicz will take the solo role in Dmitri Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 on Friday at the Opera House in a program that also includes P. I. Tchaikovsky’s symphonic poem “The Tempest” and Lutoslawski’s Concerto for Orchestra.

Eckart Preu, the Spokane Symphony’s music director, will conduct.

Josefowicz (pronounced jo-SEF-o-wits) was born near Toronto and moved with her parents (both scientists) to Southern California and then to Philadelphia, where she studied at the Curtis Institute with Jascha Brodsky and Jamie Laradeo.

“But the teacher who made a huge influence on me was my chamber music teacher, Felix Galimir,” she says. “His involvement with some of the great composers of his time encouraged me in the same direction. It’s a big inspiration to work with the creators of music nowadays.”

Josefowicz is touring this season performing concertos by contemporary composers John Adams and Oliver Knussen. She has recorded a solo work by composer-conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and has begun a commissioning project with Steven Mackey.

When Josefowicz played here last, she chose what most violinists consider the most challenging of classical concertos, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major.

As for the Shostakovich concerto on Friday’s program, she says, “It’s a fantastic piece – not only one of the greatest 20th-century works for violin and orchestra, but one of the greatest works ever.”

Josefowicz spoke in a telephone interview last week from Rochester, N.Y., where she was performing the same concerto with the Rochester Philharmonic.

She pointed out that the concerto appeared to have had an exceptionally long gestation period, having been written in 1948 but not published until 1956.

“When Shostakovich was writing this concerto, he was denounced by the Soviet government as an ‘anti-people’s composer,’ ” Josefowicz says. “So he actually hid this piece for quite some time.

“For me this is a work about strength, about overcoming hardship,” she adds. “It’s a moody piece, but it ends in triumph. It has moments of incredible rhythmic power and movement of great lyrical power.

“There are very few pieces that you feel as though you can dive into physically and emotionally 1 million percent. But I feel like I can put all of myself into it. I just recorded the concerto last month with the City of Birmingham Orchestra (in England), so it is really in my bones.”

Warner Classics will release Josefowicz’s recording on a CD in July coupled with Shostakovich’s Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 134, recorded with pianist John Novacek.

Later this year, Josefowicz says, she will record Beethoven’s Concerto and rarely heard works by Schubert with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta.

She’ll join host Verne Windham for a discussion of Friday’s concert at Classical Chats, the symphony’s pre-performance conversation, today at 12:15 p.m. in the council chambers at City Hall. The 30-minute program will be televised on City Channel 5.

Conductor Preu will discuss the music on Friday’s program as a part of the Gladys Brooks Pre-Concert Talks series in the Opera House auditorium at 7 p.m.