The Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra (PPO), the country’s premier orchestra, will hold its last concert for its 39th season, Switch, on 19 April, 7:30 p.m., at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater of Circuit Makati in Makati City. The resident orchestra of the Cultural Center of the Philippines will feature violinist Diomedes Saraza Jr. as its guest soloist.

Saraza is an active concert violinist, chamber musician and avid educator. A former Manila Symphony Orchestra’s concertmaster, Saraza is a well-established musical artist that has taken part in many international solo performances with different orchestras, such as the Mannes Orchestra, New York Symphonic Arts Ensemble, the Sichuan Philharmonic Orchestra, to name a few. His extensive solo and chamber performances include prestigious venues that span from Philippines’ Cultural Center of the Philippines, New York’s Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall to Russia’s Tchaikovsky’s Concert Hall, among others.

For its final concert, PPO music director and principal conductor Maestro Grzegorz Nowak will take the baton, leading the national orchestra in a night of Fete Francaise. The concert program includes National Artist Lucresia Kasilag’s Violin Concerto No. 1 and Camille Saint-Saëns’ Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 28.

An instrumental in developing Philippine music and culture, the National Artist for music was recognized for including indigenous Filipino instruments into orchestral productions. She has written more than 350 musical compositions that range from folksongs to opera to orchestral pieces. She was the founding mother of the Bayanihan Folk Arts Center for research and theatrical presentations and actively involved herself with the Bayanihan Philippine Dance Company.

Saint-Saëns was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic era. A child prodigy, he was already giving public concerts as a pianist and organist at a young age. One of his best-known works is the Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, op. 28. composed in 1863, and dedicated to Pablo de Sarasate, a Spanish virtuoso violinist, who frequently programmed it in his concert engagements, thus making it popular enough that other French composers made arrangements of it.

Completing the concert finale’s program is Schubert’s Symphony No. 5, a classic piece which is said to pay homage to masters Mozart and Haydn. Schubert deeply admired Mozart. His composition is frequently said to resemble the prolific and influential composer. Ranked among the greatest composers in the history of Western classical music, Schubert and his work continues to be admired and widely performed. He was a composer during the late Classical and early Romantic eras. He has composed symphonies, masses and piano works and is best remembered for his “lieder.”

Tickets to PPO Concert VIII: Fete Francaise are priced at P3,000 (Orchestra Center), P2,000 (Orchestra Side), P2,500 (Loge Center), P1,500 (Loge Side) and P800 (Balcony 1). For more information, visit the CCP website (www.culturalcenter.gov.ph) and follow the official CCP social media accounts on Facebook, X and Instagram for the latest updates.