February 19 & 21, 2026
Atlanta Symphony Hall
Atlanta, Georgia – USA
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Robert Treviño, conductor; Sergei Babayan, piano.
Angélica NEGRÓN: En otra noche, en otro mundo
Sergei RACHMANINOFF: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G minor, Op. 40
Alexander ZEMLINSKY: The Mermaid
Mark Gresham | 24 FEB 2026
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s concert on Saturday, February 21, at Atlanta Symphony Hall paired late-Romantic opulence with contemporary color, anchored by Sergei Rachmaninoff’s elusive Piano Concerto No. 4 and framed by works of Angélica Negrón and Alexander Zemlinsky. Conductor Robert Treviño shaped the evening with an ear for orchestral transparency and long architectural arcs, drawing committed playing across the sections.
Rachmaninoff’s Fourth Piano Concerto, long overshadowed by its predecessors and less performed, resists easy grandeur. Revised twice after its 1926 premiere (in 1928 and 1941), it compresses lyricism into tauter gestures and leans toward rhythmic angularity, making it the most “modernist” of the composer’s four piano concertos. Pianist Sergei Babayan approached the solo part with a balance of muscular precision and inward lyricism, clarifying textures that can easily thicken.
Robert Trevino (credit: Christiaan_Dirksen)
From the opening measures, Treviño kept tempos purposeful, yet flexible enough to allow Babayan space to phrase the concerto’s fleeting melodic fragments. The first movement’s syncopations had a springy buoyancy rather than heaviness, and the orchestra’s winds — especially clarinet and flute — contributed pointed interjections that sharpened the concerto’s jazz-tinged harmonies.
Babayan’s touch proved notably varied. In filigreed passages, he opted for pearly articulation rather than percussive brilliance, allowing inner voices to register clearly. In the slow movement, he shaped the long-breathed lines with restraint, avoiding sentimentality while sustaining a luminous singing tone. Treviño matched him with carefully graded dynamics, keeping string vibrato warm but controlled so that climaxes emerged organically.
The finale’s rhythmic drive can turn episodic, but here it unfolded with cumulative momentum. Treviño emphasized the concerto’s orchestral interplay, underscoring the score’s modernist edges rather than smoothing them into late-Romantic sweep. The closing bars landed firmly, less triumphal than resolute.
Angélica Negrón (credit: Catalina Kulczar)
Opening the program was Angélica Negrón’s En otra noche, en otro mundo, a work in part inspired by Arvo Pärt’s tintinnabuli that blends delicate orchestration with subtly shifting harmonic color. Treviño drew finely etched textures, allowing harp and high winds to shimmer without obscuring the composer’s atmospheric layering. The result was a truly gorgeous work by a distinctive contemporary composer whose voice continues to gain wider recognition in the orchestral world.
After intermission came Alexander Zemlinsky’s tone poem The Mermaid, a sprawling, luxuriantly scored fantasy inspired by Hans Christian Andersen, composed in 1903 and performed in 1905, then set aside by the composer. Here, Treviño broadened the palette, encouraging expansive string phrasing and glowing brass sonorities. The Atlanta Symphony’s strings responded with supple warmth, particularly in the work’s central love music, while lower brass and bass clarinet added dark undertones to the narrative’s more ominous passages.
Treviño maintained structural cohesion across the tone poem’s extremely episodic narrative, shaping climaxes and preventing the dense orchestration from becoming too opaque. The final pages receded into a hushed, luminous close, the orchestra sustaining pianissimo textures with notable control.
Taken together, the program juxtaposed three distinct sound worlds — Negrón’s contemporary translucence, Rachmaninoff’s compressed Romanticism, and Zemlinsky’s roaming fin-de-siècle lushness. Under Treviño’s steady direction and with Babayan’s thoughtful advocacy at the keyboard, the evening highlighted the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s capacity for both refinement and expressive breadth. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- Atlanta Symphony Orchestra: aso.org
- Robert Treviño: robert-trevino.com
- Sergei Babayan: sergeibabayan.com/en
- Angélica Negrón: angelicanegron.com
Read more by Mark Gresham.
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