ORDER NOW FOR ART GARFUNKEL WITH THE NCS

Art Garfunkel

Friday, March 2 at 8 p.m.
Saturday, March 3 at 8 p.m.
Meymandi Concert Hall, Raleigh
Art Garfunkel
William Henry Curry, Resident Conductor

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Winner of five Grammys, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member and half of one of the most popular singing duos of all time. The incomparable Art Garfunkel joins the North Carolina Symphony for a night of familiar music by NCS and the very best from Garfunkel's 50-year career behind the mic.

Tickets for both concerts are selling quickly. Order now to secure your seat!

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Pops Series Partners: CEI

Highwoods Properties

North State Strategies

Triangle Business Journal

80th Anniversary Season Subscriptions for the 2012/13 season are on sale now. Join us in celebrating the North Carolina Symphony's 80th anniversary season with some of the masterworks of the classical repertoire as well as some lesser-known works. Classical series subscriptions start at just $57. Click here to view complete series and pricing information.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Awarding-winning Composer Marvin Hamlisch to Perform at Eastern Music Festival.
Contact: Carrie Miller, Director of Marketing
336.333.7450 ext. 32
Carrie@EasternMusicFestival.org
Stephanie Cordick, Executive Director
336.333.7450 ext. 24
Stephanie@EasternMusicFestival.org

February 22, 2012, Greensboro, NC - Eastern Music Festival (EMF), along with NewBridge Bank, welcome award-winning composer MARVIN HAMLISCH on Tuesday, June 12, 2012, at 7:00pm at Dana Auditorium, Guilford College. Hamlisch is a four-time Emmy winner and has earned three Oscars, four Grammys, one Tony, and three Golden Globe awards. NewBridge Bank and EMF are proud to present this special event in celebration of EMF's 51st season, June 23 - July 28, 2012.

Marvin Hamlisch's life in music is notable for its great versatility as well as substance. Mr. Hamlisch is best known for writing the music for the groundbreaking and Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway show A Chorus Line, as well as They're Playing Our Song, The Goodbye Girl, and Sweet Smell of Success. He is the composer of more than forty motion picture scores including his Oscar-winning score and song for The Way We Were and his adaptation of Scott Joplin's music for The Sting, for which he received a third Oscar. His prolific output of scores for films include original compositions and/or musical adaptations for Sophie's Choice, Ordinary People, The Swimmer, Three Men and a Baby, Ice Castles, Take the Money and Run, Bananas, Save the Tiger, and his latest effort The Informant!, starring Matt Damon and directed by Steven Soderbergh.

Most music-patrons recognize Marvin Hamlisch for his work with the sensational Barbra Streisand. Mr. Hamlisch was Musical Director and arranger of Barbra Streisand's 1994 concert tour of the U.S. and England as well as of the television special, Barbra Streisand: The Concert (for which he received two of his Emmys).

Mr. Hamlisch holds the position of principal pops conductor for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Pasadena Symphony and Pops, Seattle Symphony and San Diego Symphony. Hamlisch is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music and Queens College (where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree). He believes in the power of music to bring people together. Biography courtesy of www.MarvinHamlisch.com.

Tickets for An Evening with Marvin Hamlisch range from $49 - $125 and will go on sale Monday, February 27, 2012. They can be purchased online at www.EasternMusicFestival.org or by calling the EMF Box Office at Triad Stage at 336.272.0160 or 866.579.TIXX. The event will be held in Dana Auditorium at Guilford College on June 12, 2012.

About Eastern Music Festival

The Eastern Music Festival's mission is to promote musical enrichment, excellence, professional collaboration, innovation, and diversity through a nationally-recognized teaching program, music festival, concerts, and other programs which will enhance the quality of life, health, and vitality of our region.

The Eastern Music Festival and School, founded in 1961 in Greensboro, North Carolina by Sheldon Morgenstern, is an internationally-renowned classical music festival and institute for young musicians that runs for five weeks each summer. The institute accepts students ages 14 through 22 from around the country and the world. The EMF faculty consists of world-class performing artists selected from top orchestras and music schools nationally and internationally. Led by music director Gerard Schwarz, the Eastern Music Festival and School celebrates its 51st season in 2012.

The 2012 Eastern Music Festival season is sponsored, in part, with support from NewBridge Bank, the National Endowment for the Arts, Lincoln Financial Advisors, Triad Stage, Steinway/Piedmont Music Center, Audio & Light, VF Corporation, American Express, Triad Financial Advisors, Pennybyrn at Maryfield, Well?pring, McMillion Capital Management, DMJ, the Tannenbaum-Sternberger Foundation, and the UNCG School of Music, Theatre, and Dance.

Proximity and O.Henry hotels are the Official Hotels of the Eastern Music Festival.

Major financial support for Eastern Music Festival provided by the United Arts Council of Greater Greensboro.

For the most up-to-date Festival information, be sure to follow us Facebook (EasternMusicFestival) and Twitter (EMFGreensboro).

Contact Carrie Miller, Director of Marketing, at Carrie@EasternMusicFestival.org to request artist bios and photographs. *Dates, programs, venues, and artists are subject to change. For more information about the Eastern Music Festival & School, visit www.EasternMusicFestival.org. EMF is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. All contributions are tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law.

NewBridge Bank and Eastern Music Festival present
An Evening with Marvin Hamlisch
June 12, 2012 at 8pm
Dana Auditorium, Guilford College
5800 West Friendly Avenue
Greensboro, NC 27410

Eastern Music Festival (EMF), along with NewBridge Bank, welcome award-winning composer MARVIN HAMLISCH on Tuesday, June 12, 2012, at 7:00pm at Dana Auditorium, Guilford College. Hamlisch is a four-time Emmy winner and has earned three Oscars, four Grammys, one Tony, and three Golden Globe awards. NewBridge Bank and EMF are proud to present this special event in appreciation of EMF's 51st season, June 23 - July 28, 2012. Tickets on sale beginning Monday, February 27, 2012.

For tickets:
Phone: (336) 272-0160
Toll-free: (866) 579-TIXX (8499)
Box Office hours: Monday - Friday, 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Online: www.EasternMusicFestival.org.
Ticket price: $49-$125. Reserved Seating.

BEETHOVEN FOR ALL
GERMANY'S LARGEST VIRTUAL CHOIR WITH DANIEL BARENBOIM AND THE WEST-EASTERN DIVAN ORCHESTRA AND YOU!

Classical Radio is in cooperation with Germany's largest KlassikAkzente Beethoven choral and needs your help! Send us your personal videos with the "Ode to Joy", no matter whether you sing by yourself, with your family, your employees or club members. From your submissions, we put together this unique choir and present the results live on radio and classical music on this site. With a little luck you will meet with Daniel Barenboim and the West Eastern Divan Orchestra at the Berlin forest stage at the big "All Beethoven" concert on 29.07.2012.

How it Works:

Check out the trailer for the Sample "Ode to Joy" at the top right. Fill the form out, then you get to sing along with text and video and MP3 of the entire fourth Movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony as a thank you!

Films in to the singing and send us your video on the upload function . We look forward to your contributions! Deadline is the 09.03.2012 [March 9, 2012]

YOUTUBE:

Register: http://www.beethoven-fuer-alle.de/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Marc Apter,
301-904-3690
marca1030@gmail.com

Pianist Brian Ganz Continues His Chopin Project
February 11th at the Music Center at Strathmore

At Eleven Years of Age Ganz “Wounded “ by Chopin

North Bethesda, MD, (January 14, 2012) –About a year ago, Pianist Brian Ganz began his “Extreme Chopin” quest to perform all of Frédéric Chopin’s works. The sold out recital at the Music Center of Strathmore launched Ganz’s ambitious endeavor to perform the approximately 250 works of Chopin over the next decade. The next concert in the series will take place at Strathmore on February 11 at 8 pm. To purchase tickets visit nationalphilharmonic.org or call 301-581-5100.

Ganz will explore the theme of “Dances and Fantasies” in his second Chopin recital at Strathmore. “The program will include such beloved Chopin favorites as the Fantaisie-Impromptu and the ever popular Polonaise in A major,” Ganz said, “The Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op. 61, Chopin’s last large-scale masterworks for solo piano, will form the centerpiece of the program. It’s one of Chopin’s very personal statements, and relatively rarely heard.”

The February 2012 program will include Two Polonaises, Op. 40; Fantaisie ("Fantasy") in F minor, Op. 49; Impromptu No. 2 in F-sharp Major, Op. 36; Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor, Op. 66 (Posthumous); Waltz in A-flat Major, Op.42; Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op. 61; Four Mazurkas, Op. 6; Andante Spianato et Grande Polonaise Brillante, Op. 22.

An audience of almost 2,000 attended the January 2011 concert, after which The Washington Post wrote: “Brian Ganz was masterly in his first installment of the complete works.”

“Chopin’s music is the language of my soul, and I have dreamed since childhood of someday performing all of his works,” said Ganz, widely regarded as one of the leading pianists of his generation. In an article about the project, the Baltimore Sun wrote: “The boy was 11, already well along in his process of discovering music, when he found himself alone at home one day listening to Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, Opus 23. Something in the piece struck Brian Ganz like a bolt from stormy skies.” Ganz recounted that moment, saying, “How can it be so beautiful that it hurts? That was the moment that I like to say Chopin wounded me.”

Since his January 2011 Chopin recital, Ganz has performed the Grieg piano concerto with the National Philharmonic under the direction of Music Director and Conductor Piotr Gajewski and Beethoven’s first concerto with the National Symphony of Costa Rica under the baton of Mykola Diadiura. He has toured northern California with the Palomarin Chamber Music Foundation and played in Italy with the Alba Music Festival. In January, he will make his first appearances in South America as he takes part in the Cartagena Music Festival in Colombia.

In his inaugural Chopin recital, Ganz played several early pieces to showcase Chopin’s initial promise and then played more mature works in the same genres to demonstrate the promise fulfilled. “I like to call this ‘musical gardening,’” Ganz has said, “First the seed of his genius, then the full flowering.” Future recitals will include all the chamber music and songs as well as the complete solo works, including each version of every mazurka and waltz. Ganz will also play such obscure overlooked works as the little Fugue in A minor, the two bourrées and the variation Chopin wrote for Hexameron, a rarely heard work initiated by Chopin's friend, composer and pianist Franz Liszt, and carried out completed by multiple composers.

Ganz is researching the question of whether every work has ever been performed before by a single pianist in a series. He may be the first to perform all Chopin’s works, but says, “Of course, the important thing is not whether I’m the first to do this. I’m excited to share works with Chopin lovers that they may never have heard before,” Ganz said. “There are so many beloved works of great beauty and emotional power, but there are also quite a few buried treasures that deserve to be heard. It’s fascinating to hear, for example, the different authentic versions that exist of some very well-known works. There are marvelous surprises in store for Chopin lovers.”

Ganz will perform Chopin’s orchestral works with the National Philharmonic, led by Maestro Gajewski, who has embraced the pianist’s ambitious endeavor wholeheartedly. “Brian is likely the first to undertake to perform all the works of Chopin. He is the perfect pianist to play all of Chopin’s works--not only because of his great love for the composer, but also because of his intense connection with his audience,” Gajewski said. “Brian’s playing exudes incredible warmth and openness. He demonstrates an uncommon eagerness to bridge the distance between artist and audience.”

Ganz’s recordings have been released on the Accord label in Paris. He has begun a project with Maestoso Records to record the complete works of Chopin and has also recorded on the Gailly label in Belgium. In addition, he has been named an artist/editor for the Schirmer Performance Editions, which has already published his Chopin Preludes.

“There isn’t much about Chopin that Brian Ganz doesn’t know,” The Washington Post has written. “The pianist has explored the nocturnes, the etudes, the sonatas and concertos and the rest in concerts, master classes and recordings for years now. His delight and wonder in this music seems to grow, apparently without bounds, as time goes on.”

In January 2010, Ganz visited Poland, invited by the renowned conductor Miroslaw Blaszczyk to play with the Filharmonia Slaska and Filharmonia Pomorska. Visiting Chopin’s home country affected Ganz profoundly. “Chopin is Poland’s national treasure. His face was pictured everywhere, sometimes with no name under it and no caption of any kind. It is almost as if he is the air people breathe. This was profoundly satisfying to me, because he has always been the air I breathe,” Ganz said. “I visited the church where his heart lies in Warsaw. I visited the monument where outside concerts take place under a graceful, sweeping statue of him. I took a taxi to his birthplace in Zelazowa Wola. The whole experience was a pilgrimage for me.”

Ganz sometimes brings his entire collection of Chopin’s music to a performance so that he can accept requests from the audience. "One of my lifelong goals has been to study every single note Chopin composed," Ganz said. "This project gives me a lovely framework within which to reach that goal." In an exuberant review of a Ganz performance, The Washington Post wrote, “One comes away from a recital by pianist Brian Ganz not only exhilarated by the power of the performance but also moved by his search for artistic truth.”

Ganz has shared First Grand Prize in the Marguerite Long Jacques Thibaud International Piano Competition and won a silver medal (third prize) in the Queen Elisabeth of Belgium International Competition. He has performed as a soloist with such orchestras as the St. Louis Symphony, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the City of London Sinfonia and Paris’s L’Orchestre Lamoureux and under the direction of conductors such as Leonard Slatkin and Mstislav Rostropovich.

He is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Leon Fleisher. Earlier teachers include Yyda Novik and Claire Deene. Gifted as a teacher himself, Ganz is a member of the piano faculty and Artist-in-Residence at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. He also serves on the piano faculty of the Peabody Conservatory. He has served on the jury of the Long Thibaud Competition in Paris.

To purchase tickets to Brian Ganz’s all-Chopin concert on February 11, 2012 at 8pm at the Music Center at Strathmore, please visit nationalphilharmonic.org or call the Strathmore ticket office at (301) 581-5100. Tickets are $24 - $46; kids 7-17 are FREE through the ALL KIDS, ALL FREE, ALL THE TIME program (sponsored by The Gazette). ALL KIDS tickets must be purchased in person or by phone. Parking is free.

David Lang's 'death speaks'
Premieres at Stanford and Carnegie Hall
January 25 and 27
with Bryce Dessner (The National), Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond), Owen Pallet, and Nico Muhly plus the little match girl passion, sung by Theatre of Voices, Paul Hillier, Director

" With his winning of the Pulitzer Prize for the little match girl passion (one of the most original and moving scores of recent years), Lang, once a postminimalist enfant terrible, has solidified his standing as an American master." — The New Yorker

Photos: Dessner by Rene Cervantes/MTV | Muhly by Samantha West | Pallett by Ryan Pfluger | Worden by Matt Wignall

In October 2007 Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices premiered David Lang's the little match girl passion at Carnegie Hall. People in the audience that night knew they had heard something special. But this special? Only a few months later the piece won the Pulitzer Prize, then the recording on Harmonia Mundi won a Grammy, and the piece has gone on to become a hit around the world.

death speaks was commissioned by Carnegie Hall and Stanford Lively Arts, specifically to go on a program with the little match girl passion. The opportunity came without many other parameters, so there were a lot of questions I had to answer. Would the new piece be for an existing ensemble or some group I would assemble for these performances only? Would it relate to little match girl, musically or emotionally, or would it start from its own place?

Something that has always interested me about the little match girl story is that the place where we are left emotionally at the end is so far away from where the match girl is. We are all weeping at the end and yet she is happily transfigured, in the welcoming arms of her grandmother in heaven. The original story switches starkly back and forth at the end, between her state and ours, perhaps in order to show us just how far away from redemption we are; it is Andersen's way of making us feel left behind.

This reminded me of certain other stark comparisons between the living and the dead. I remembered the structure of Schubert's beautiful song "Death and the Maiden" in which the text is divided in half; the first half of the song is in the voice of the young girl, begging Death to pass her by, and the second half of the song is Death's calming answer. This seemed to be the same division as in the Andersen story — the fear of the living opposed against the restfulness of death.

What makes the Schubert interesting is that Death is personified. It isn't a state of being or a place or a metaphor, but a person , a character in a drama who can tell us in our own language what to expect in the World to Come. Schubert has a lot of songs with texts like these — I wondered if I assembled all of the instances of Death speaking directly to us then maybe a fuller portrait of his character might emerge. Most of these texts are melodramatic, hyper-romantic and over-emotional; one of the knocks on Schubert is that he often saved his best music for the worst poetry. Nevertheless, I felt that taking these overwrought comments by Death at face value just might lead me someplace worth going.

I went alphabetically in the German through every single Schubert song text (thank you, internet!) and compiled every instance of when the dead send a message to the living. Some of these are obvious and some are more speculative — Death is a named character in "Der Erlkönig," the brook at the end of Die Schöne Müllerin speaks in Death's name when it talks the miller into killing himself, the hurdy gurdy player at the end of Winterreise has long been interpreted as a stand-in for Death. All told, I have used excerpts from 32 songs, translating them very roughly and trimming them, in the same way that I adjusted the Bach texts in the little match girl passion.

Art songs have been moving out of classical music in the last many years — indie rock seems to be the place where Schubert's sensibilities now lie, a better match for direct storytelling and intimate emotionality.

I started thinking that many of the most interesting musicians in that scene made the same journey themselves, beginning as classical musicians and drifting over to indie rock when they bumped up against the limits of where classical music was most comfortable. What would it be like to put together an ensemble of successful indie composer-performers and invite them back into classical music, the world from which they sprang?

I asked rock musicians Bryce Dessner, Owen Pallett, and Shara Worden to join me, and we added Nico Muhly, who, although not someone who left classical music, is certainly known and welcome in many musical environments. All of these musicians are composers who can write all the music they need themselves, so it is a tremendous honor for me to ask them to spend some of their musicality on my music.

Copyright © 2011 by Red Poppy Music, LTD

For Immediate Release
Orchestra Nova San Diego Reaches for the Stars
Orchestra Nova San Diego Reaches for the Stars
Orchestra Nova Continues to Demonstrate Solid Success and Trajectory
in Its 2011-2012 Season
Media Release
Contact: Matt Shoaf
Marketing Outreach Manager
January 20, 2012 858-350-0290, ext. 8
matt.shoaf@orchestranova.org
San Diego, CA

Orchestra Nova announces it has achieved unprecedented fundraising heights in its recent 2011-2012 fundraising drive conducted in December. This follows on the heels of ending its 2010-2011 season in the black, a rarity in the arts these days. The December drive yielded several key metrics which underscore the organization's solid and growing success: Orchestra Nova quadrupled the total amount of donations received this season over last season. Over 30 percent of donations came from first-time donors, indicating that Orchestra Nova is clearly reaching new audiences, while nurturing its loyal donation base. The average donation amount this season was $237, double the average gift of last season. Orchestra Nova received a generous corporate challenge from locally-headquartered HME, which inspired nearly twice as many donors to give this season. "We are proud to be one of the sponsors of Orchestra Nova," said Harry Miyahira, founder of HME. "Leadership at the top reflects the innovations of the Orchestra Nova product."

Orchestra Nova has doubled its staff over the last year to manage its growing success, and it has increased its budget this year by 25 percent. In addition, Orchestra Nova has sold out every Nova Classics concert to date this season, and current sales are on track for the remainder of the performances to sell out as well.

Behind all of this success is an organization with a vision and mission that is quite different from those of most orchestras. Under the leadership of the dynamic artistic director Jung-Ho Pak, Orchestra Nova is focused on delivering an extraordinary music experience, one that better connects today's audiences to beautifully and artfully played classical music by engaging all of the senses in a unique and theatrical lobby and concert hall experience. Immersing the orchestra's guests in sights, sounds and tastes in the theme of a performance brings relevance, emotion and enthusiasm to guests in a way not found in traditional orchestral performances.

"It was Jung-Ho's vision that started us – and has kept us – on the path to the success we're seeing today," says Beverly Lambert, chief executive officer. "We're wrapping an experience around classical music that I don't believe any other orchestra in the country is doing today, and our guests are responding with gusto."

As a result, not only has Orchestra Nova seen unprecedented financial success but also it has begun to garner national attention and engage more high-profile music entities. In December, it was asked to perform with Celtic Woman at their opening performance of a national tour. Most recently, Orchestra Nova was proud to share the stage with internationally renowned rock fusion guitarist Billy McLaughlin in a unique performance paring an orchestra and acoustic guitar to be broadcast nationally later this year.

Others in the industry are recognizing the Orchestra Nova difference. "It seems to me that orchestras currently sit somewhere between two positions: those who see the challenges of the future and are flexible enough to move to meet and embrace them and those who are wed to the traditional 'us and them' model that has led to so many problems for orchestras globally," said John Page, artistic director and conductor for Celtic Woman. "I have to say, of all the groups, Orchestra Nova clearly aligns itself very much to the first position. The willingness to collaborate and get involved, the clear sighted vision that there's no room for complacency and musicians have to embrace all and the wonderful attitude of the players stands out for me as one of the healthiest and most fun groups we had."

About Orchestra Nova

Under the dynamic leadership of artistic director Jung-Ho Pak, chief executive officer Beverly Lambert and board president, Dr. Samuel Dychter, Orchestra Nova is on an exciting mission to provide a dramatic music experience that is extraordinary in every way. Unlike many classical music organizations, Orchestra Nova is enjoying unprecedented financial and artistic success as it continues to demonstrate its fresh and open approach to making classical music entertaining, emotional and relevant to today's audiences. The Nova Experience begins once you enter the door and are immersed in the lobby experience that sets the stage for the evening's concert which includes creative programming, multimedia presentations, unique interaction with artistic director Pak and unsurpassed musicianship.

Orchestra Nova is deeply committed to music education and has one of the most extensive programs in San Diego County, engaging thousands of students through programs that are low-cost, self-sustainable and long-lasting.

For more information, visit orchestranova.org. 11772 Sorrento Valley Road, Suite 212, San Diego, CA 92121 • 858-350-0290 • 858-350-0297 (Fax) • orchestranova.org

January 4, 2012
John Chamberlain (502) 852-6171
j.chamberlain@louisville.edu

UofL awards noted composer Karel Husa with honorary degree

LOUISVILLE, Ky. –University of Louisville officials will present renowned music composer Karel Husa with an honorary degree. He will receive a Doctor of Fine Arts honoris causa at a special ceremony on Jan. 16 in Raleigh, NC.

A winner of the 1969 Pulitzer Prize in Music and the 1993 UofL Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, Husa has had a longstanding relationship with the university.

Christopher Doane, dean of the School of Music, will present the award at a noon luncheon in Husa’s honor at the 18 Seaboard restaurant, 18 Seaboard Avenue.

“Husa’s music, teaching and conducting has been imprinted on generations of musicians throughout the United States and the world,” Doane said. “He is an international music treasure.”

A native of Czechoslovakia, Husa immigrated to the U.S. in 1954 and has been active as an orchestral conductor, composer and academic with Cornell University and Ithaca College in New York. Husa’s works have included commissions to write for many of the world’s major orchestras and are among the most performed music compositions of the late 20th-century.

“Our celebration honors the close relationship between Husa and the university,” Doane said.

Husa’s ballet “The Trojan Women” was commissioned for the 1980 opening of the School of Music building on the university’s Belknap Campus and, more recently, he wrote “Cheetah,” which was performed by the University of Louisville Wind Symphony at Carnegie Hall in honor of the school’s 75th anniversary in 2007.

The UofL honor adds to the numerous honorary degrees and recognition for Husa which include a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation; awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, UNESCO, and the National Endowment for the Arts; Koussevitzky Foundation commissions; the Czech Academy for the Arts and Sciences Prize; the Czech Medal of Merit, First Class, from President Vaclav Havel; and the Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund Award.

Now 90, Husa lives in Apex, NC, near Raleigh.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 3, 2012
Media Contact:
Karen Wing
919-608-8997

NORTH CAROLINA OPERA TO PRESENT LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES, A PHILIP GLASS OPERA

RALEIGH, N.C.-- North Carolina Opera will present Les Enfants Terribles (Children of the Game), a dance opera by Philip Glass Jan. 19, 20 and 22, 2012 at the Fletcher Opera Theater at the Progress Energy Center in Raleigh, N.C. Robert Weiss, Artistic Director of Carolina Ballet, will serve as director and choreographer, and the production will feature dancers from Carolina Ballet. The opera will be sung in French with English supertitles.

Les Enfants Terribles wascreated by Philip Glass and Susan Marshall in 1996. It is based on the 1929 novel of the same title by Jean Cocteau and the 1950 film from Jean-Pierre Melville. It is the third of a trilogy of operas that Glass composed based on works of Cocteau. Jan. 31, 2012 marks the 75th birthday celebration of Philip Glass, one of America’s most popular composers, whose work includes opera, symphony, ballet and film (The Hours, No Reservations, The Thin Blue Line, Kundun, among others).

In Les Enfants Terribles, a brother and sister live in a fantasy world, a “game” of their own imagining. Friends from the outside world try to enter, but the harmless “game” turns into a fierce and tragic struggle. Wilson Southerland conducts and Robert Weiss directs and choreographs. Jessica Cates, soprano and a native of Greensboro, NC, will play the role of Lise. Mezzo-soprano Nicole Rodin is Dargelos/Agathe, tenor Philippe Pierce is Gérard and baritone Timothy McDevitt will play Paul. Dancers from the Carolina Ballet include Lara O’Brien, Lindsay Purrington, Yevgeny Shlapko and Gabor Kapin. Jeff A.R. Jones is the scenic designer, Ross Kolman the lighting designer, Kerri Martinsen the costume designer, and Roz Fulton the video designer.

This is a beautiful and haunting opera,” said Eric Mitchko, General Director of North Carolina Opera. “It’s a piece we have long wanted to do. Philip Glass appeals to a much broader music public than many other composers do, and the performance will be a rare treat for Triangle opera enthusiasts.”

After making his Kennedy Center debut accompanying esteemed conductor-violinist Lorin Maazel, Wilson Southerland later joined Maestro Maazel at Cal Performances in Berkeley, CA, as principal coach and pianist for his Britten Project. His New York debut at Merkin Hall led to subsequent appearances at Alice Tully Hall, Steinway Hall, and the Apollo Theater. In Europe, Mr. Southerland’s engagements have included concerts at London’s Wigmore Hall and the Villa D’Ephrussi Palace near Nice, France. He was also invited to perform at the Spoleto USA Festival (where he premiered works of composer David Lang) and served as pianist for choreographer Mark Morris. A former faculty member of Vanderbilt University and former guest faculty at the Eastman School of Music, he has appeared in recital with Metropolitan Opera soprano Emily Pulley, Naumburg Vocal Competition winner Stephen Salters, and Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell. Recently, he made his theatrical debut as the Accompanist in Terrence McNally’s Tony-winning play Master Class. Mr. Southerland holds a Master of Music from The Juilliard School.

Robert Weiss began his career as a professional dancer at the age of 17, when he joined the New York City Ballet at the request of George Balanchine. He remained with the company for 17 years, rising to the rank of principal dancer. During this time he performed principal roles in over 40 ballets, some of which were created for him by both Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. His career took him next to Pennsylvania Ballet in Philadelphia, where he served as Artistic Director for eight years. As a choreographer, Mr. Weiss has created over 40 ballets, including commissions by Pennsylvania Ballet, American Ballet Theatre (for Kirkland and Baryshnikov), the New York City Ballet, Bejart’s Ballet of the 20th Century, The Caramoor Festival, and Philadanco Dance Company, among others. In May 1997, Mr. Weiss was invited to become the founding Artistic Director of Carolina Ballet. Mr. Weiss has received great critical and audience response for his Carolina Ballet world premieres including Romeo and Juliet, Messiah, Stravinsky’s Clowns (Jeu de Cartes, Petruschka and Pulchinella), Carmen, Nutcracker, The Kreutzer Sonata, Firebird (which has been presented by Washington Ballet at the Kennedy Center in the nation’s capital), Swan Lake, Cinderella and Peter and the Wolf, and a new Sleeping Beauty after Petipa to end the tenth anniversary season in 2008. In 2009 Mr. Weiss created a new Beauty and the Beast to a commissioned score from Karl Moraski. Robert Weiss received the Medal of the Arts from the City of Raleigh Arts Commission in May 2005, and in fall 2009 he was honored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society of North Carolina. In May 2011, Mr. Weiss received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts Degree from North Carolina State University.

A native of Greensboro, NC, emerging soprano Jessica Cates recently debuted with Fort Worth Opera as Yum-Yum in The Mikado. Upon completing her first summer as a Young American Artist with Glimmerglass Opera, she performed in The Tender Land, and covered Elisa in Tolomeo. Cates performed the role of Ann Putnam in The Crucible with Knoxville Opera Studio, as well as Edith in The Pirates of Penzance and Countess Ceprano in Rigoletto for Knoxville Opera.

Mezzo-soprano Nicole Rodin has performed with the Boston Lyric Opera as Hansel in Hansel and Gretel and Rosina in The Barber of Seville, both a part of the company’s Opera for Young Audiences. She was an Apprentice Artist with Central City Opera in 2011, singing the title role in the family performance of Handel’s Amadigi di Gaula. Rodin will serve as an Emerging Artist with Boston Lyric Opera in Spring 2012, performing the role of Bobachino in John Musto’s The Inspector. While attending the New England Conservatory of Music, Ms. Rodin performed the role of Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos.

Philippe Pierce has earned critical acclaim in such roles as Don Basilio and Don Curzio in Le nozze di Figaro with Opera Cleveland. He was awarded that Opera’s “Belle O. Morse Young Artist Award” for Exceptional Promise and Outstanding Vocal Performance. In the current season and beyond, he will perform Gastone in La Traviata with the Nashville Opera, and Beppe in Pagliacci with Michigan Opera Theatre and Austin Lyric Opera.

Baritone Timothy J. McDevitt has appeared as Le Gendarmein Les Mamelles de Tirésias and Marcoin Gianni Schicchi with the Central City Opera and Testoin Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda at Alice Tully Hall. He was the 2011 winner of Central City Opera's esteemed John Moriarty Award and a 2010 winner of the Lys Symonette Prize in the Kurt Weill Foundation's Lotte Lenya Competition.

Lara O'Brien is an accomplished Principal with the Carolina Ballet. She began dancing at the age of eight and trained with the School of Ballet Chicago and the School of American Ballet in New York City. She joined Carolina Ballet in 2001 as a member of the corps de ballet, was made a soloist in 2004 and promoted to the rank of Principal in April of 2011. Ms. O'Brien has performed many featured roles in Carolina Ballet's repertory including The Swan Queen in Swan Lake, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, the Lilac Fairy in Sleeping Beauty, Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream and the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker.

Lindsay Purrington received her early ballet training from The Raleigh School of Ballet, followed by St. Paul’s School in Concord, NH, and The Julliard School in New York City. She joined Carolina Ballet as a founding member in 1998 and achieved Soloist ranking in 2003. From 2004-2006, Ms. Purrington danced with Ballet New York in New York City, performing principal roles in George Balanchine’s “Who Cares?”, Stanton Welch’s “Orange”, and “The Nutcracker”. She joined the Pennsylvania Ballet in 2007, dancing featured roles in works by Paul Taylor, Robert Weiss, Mauro Bigonzetti and Matthew Neenan. Since returning to Carolina Ballet in 2009, Ms. Purrington has performed featured roles in Robert Weiss’ “A Dancerly Response”, “Time Gallery”, “Adagio for Strings”, and “Song of the Dead.”

Yevgeny Shlapko was born in Odessa, Ukraine and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He began his ballet training at age eight, at The School of American Ballet in New York City. He spent the next ten years under the direction of many teachers such as Peter Boal, Jock Soto, and Andrei Kramarevsky. In 2007, Yevgeny began his professional career with a Corps de Ballet position with the Carolina Ballet. Since joining the company, he has been featured in such roles as The Raven in Robert Weiss' Sleeping Beauty, first theme of George Balanchine's Four Temperaments as well as the principal couple in George Balachine's Valse Fantaisie. In 2011, Yevgeny was promoted to the rank of Soloist dancer.

Gabor Kapin began his ballet training at the Hungarian Dance Acadamy in Budapest. As a student he performed feature roles with the Hungarian National Ballet in their productions of Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Coppelia and Balanchine's La Sonnambula. In 1999, he joined Carolina Ballet, where he quickly rose to the rank of soloist. In 2005, Mr.Kapin joined Boston Ballet under the direction of Mikko Nissinen. In Boston he worked with numerous contemporary and modern choreographers such as Mark Morris, Jorma Elo, Sabrina Matthews and Helen Pickett. He rejoined Carolina Ballet as a principal in 2008. His repertoire includes the lead in Robert Weiss's Messiah, Swan Lake, Coppelia, Sleeping Beauty (after Petipa), Carmen (Don Jose), Jerome Robins's Fancy Free (Rhumba Boy), and some of Balanchine's well known ballets: The Prodigal Son, Rubies, Four Temperaments and A Midsummer Nights Dream.

Tickets are $25 to $83, and are on sale now by calling the North Carolina Opera Box Office at 919-792-3850, filling out the form available at [1]www.ncopera.org or going to www.ticketmaster.com. Performances will be on Jan. 19 at 8 p.m., Jan. 20 at 8 p.m. and Jan. 22 at 3 p.m.

ABOUT NORTH CAROLINA OPERA

North Carolina Opera was formed in 2010 from the merger of Capital Opera Raleigh and The Opera Company of North Carolina. It is dedicated to presenting operatic performances at the highest level throughout the Triangle. We also have a robust education program that brings opera to schools across Wake County and surrounding counties. North Carolina Opera brings international level artists to Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, and also engages the best in local Triangle talent.

Media Release
Contact: Ellen James
Communications and Marketing Manager
(919) 843-0516
Ellen_James@unc.edu

Brooklyn Rider String Quartet and The Knights Chamber Orchestra Perform at UNC’s Memorial Hall on January 11, 2012

Chapel Hill, NC… Brooklyn Rider, a dynamic string quartet that has been called the future of classic music return to Memorial Hall on Wednesday, Jan. 11, for a one-night performance. They are joined by The Knights, a Brooklyn-based orchestra known for their gutsy and unrestrained performances and making their first appearance outside of New York City venues.

The adventurous, genre-defying string quartet Brooklyn Rider combines a wildly eclectic repertoire with a gripping performance style that attracts legions of fans and draws acclaim from critics of classical, world and rock music. NPR credits Brooklyn Rider with “recreating the 300-year-old form of string quartet as a vital and creative 21st-century ensemble.”

Brooklyn Rider (whose name is derived from the German artistic collective Der Blau Reiter—The Blue Rider) features Johnny Gandelsman, violin; Colin Jacobsen, violin; Nicholas Cords, viola; and Eric Jacobsen, cello. They perform in venues as varied as Joe’s Pub and Alice Tully Hall in New York City to the Todai-ji Temple in Japan, from the Library of Congress to the South By Southwest Festival. Through creative programming and global collaborations, Brooklyn Rider illuminates music for its audiences in ways that are “stunningly imaginative,” according to LucidCulture.com.

This is the third time Brooklyn Rider has appeared at UNC’s Memorial Hall following their 2008 appearance with Yo-Yo Ma and their 2010 appearance with the trio 2 Foot Yard. For the Jan. 11 program, Brooklyn Rider will be performing Mozart’s “String Quartet No. 8 in F Major,” an original composition “Seven Steps,” Joao Gilberto’s “Undiú” and traditional Roma music.

Born out of a desire to use the rich medium of the string quartet as a vehicle for communication across a large cross-section of history and geography, Brooklyn Rider is equally devoted to the interpretation of existing quartet literature and to the creation of new works. Much of Brooklyn Rider's desire to extend the borders of conventional string quartet programming has come from their longstanding participation in Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble. As individual members of the ensemble, they have performed throughout the world, recorded three albums for Sony Classical, and taken part in educational initiatives, family concerts and media broadcasts.

Brothers Colin and Eric Jacobsen are also the co-founders of The Knights, a chamber orchestra in which all the members of Brooklyn Rider participate. The 37-member orchestra will be performing Beethoven’s iconic “Symphony No. 5 in C minor” on Jan. 11.

The Knights is an orchestra of friends from a broad spectrum of the New York music world who cultivate collaborative music-making and creatively engage audiences in the shared joy of musical performance. Led by an open-minded spirit of solidarity and exploration, they expand the orchestral concert experience with programs that encompass their roots in the classical tradition and their passion for musical discovery. For their inspired programming and innovative formats, The Knights have been hailed as “the future of classical music in America” by the Los Angeles Times.

The formation of The Knights evolved from late night chamber music reading parties with friends at the home of violinist Colin Jacobsen and cellist Eric Jacobsen. The Jacobsen brothers serve as co-artistic directors for The Knights, with Eric Jacobsen as music director and conductor. The unique camaraderie within the orchestra continues to create an intimacy and immediacy of chamber music in performance. Each opportunity for these busy, versatile musicians to perform together as The Knights is a special occasion that they consider, quite literally, playtime.

The Knights boasts an unprecedented diversity of talents. There are composers, arrangers, singer-songwriters and improvisers who bring a range of cultural influences to the group from jazz and klezmer genres to pop and indie rock music. The musicians are graduates of such elite music schools as Juilliard, Curtis, Eastman, Manhattan and Mannes, and members have performed as soloists with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago and San Francisco symphony orchestras, as well as the Israel Philharmonic and Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart orchestra. Equally successful as chamber and orchestral musicians, they participate in the world's most prestigious music festivals, including Marlboro, Tanglewood, Verbier, Lucerne and Salzburg, and perform with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony, Toronto Symphony and New York Philharmonic.

The Knights have been touring through the U.S. and Germany and were recently a focus of documentary produced by WNET/Thirteen, entitled We Are The Knights, it premiered in September 2011. The Knight’s just released the album A Second in Silence featuring music by Erik Satie and Morton Feldman with Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony. The ensemble records an all-Beethoven disc for Sony Classical, their third project with the label.

The orchestra's extensive repertoire features traditional and contemporary masterworks of classical, popular, and world music in collaboration with such leading artists as soprano Dawn Upshaw and violinist Gil Shaham, flutist Paula Robison, singer-songwriter (and Knights violinist) Christina Courtin, Iranian ney (Persian bamboo flute) virtuoso Siamak Jahangiri, pianist Steven Beck, fiddler Mark O'Connor, and Syrian clarinetist/composer Kinan Azmeh.

Tickets for the Jan.11 performance are $19–$39 for general admission and $10 for UNC-Chapel Hill students. More information about The Knights and Brooklyn Rider can be found at www.carolinaperformingarts.org/resources/brooklyn. To purchase tickets, please call Memorial Hall Box Office at 919.843.3333 or go to www.carolinaperformingarts.org

About Carolina Performing Arts

Carolina Performing Arts’ mission is to enrich lives by creating and presenting exceptional arts experiences. The organization nurtures artistic innovation and the development of new works on and off campus; challenges and inspires audiences with powerful and transformative performances; and integrates the arts into the life of the University, embracing its mission of teaching, research and public service. www.carolinaperformingarts.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Press contact (Dinnerstein): Christina Jensen PR, 646.536.7864
Christina Jensen, christina@christinajensenpr.com
Canelle Boughton, canelle@christinajensenpr.com

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Presented by Duke Performances
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 8pm
Reynolds Industries Theater, Duke University
Bryan University Center | 125 Science Drive | Durham, NC

Tickets: General Admission $30; Duke Students $5 at 919.684.4444 or www.dukeperformances.duke.edu

Program:

• Chopin’s Nocturne No. 8 in D-flat Major, Op. 27
• Daniel Felsenfeld’s The Cohen Variations
• Brahms’ Intermezzo, Op. 118, No. 2 in A
• Bach’s Partita No. 2 in C Minor
• Schubert’s Four Impromptus, Op. 90
• Bach’s Partita No. 1 in B-flat Major

Watch Simone Dinnerstein on CBS Sunday Morning

Simone Dinnerstein online: www.simonedinnerstein.com

Something Almost Being Said music video:

Durham, NC—Chart-topping pianist Simone Dinnerstein will perform on Friday, January 20, 2012 at 8pm presented by Duke Performances at Reynolds Industries Theater (Bryan University Center, 125 Science Drive, Durham, NC). Ms. Dinnerstein will perform Chopin’s Nocturne No. 8 in D-flat Major, Op. 27; New York-based composer Daniel Felsenfeld’s The Cohen Variations (inspired by the music of Leonard Cohen and commissioned by Ms. Dinnerstein); and Brahms’ Intermezzo, Op. 118, No. 2 in A. The program also includes selections from Ms. Dinnerstein’s upcoming Sony Classical album, Something Almost Being Said: The Music of Bach and Schubert, which will be released on January 31, 2012. The album and Ms. Dinnerstein’s concert in Durham include Bach’s Partita No. 2 in C Minor; Schubert’s Four Impromptus, Op. 90; Bach’s Partita No. 1 in B-flat Major. (Promotional CDs are available upon request.

Ms. Dinnerstein is appearing as part of Duke Performances’ Piano Recital Series, now in its fourth year, which consistently features world-class musicians performing the best of the classical repertoire. This year’s season features — in addition to Dinnerstein — Garrick Ohlsson (March 16) and Richard Goode (April 19). Ms. Dinnerstein last appeared at Duke in January 2011 in NIGHT, a collaboration with singer-songwriter Tift Merritt which was commissioned by Duke Performances.

Ms. Dinnerstein’s new album, Something Almost Being Said, was recorded at the Academy of Arts and Letters in New York by Grammy-winning producer Adam Abeshouse. The album's title is taken from English poet Philip Larkin's poem, The Trees. Ms. Dinnerstein says of the new album, and its title, “Bach and Schubert, to my ears, share a distinctive quality. Their non-vocal music has a powerful narrative, a vocal element. The effect is that of wordless voices singing textless melodies. Bach and Schubert's melodic lines are so fluent, so expressive, and so minutely inflected that they sound as though they might at any moment burst suddenly into speech. They sound like something almost being said.”

Something Almost Being Said follows the release of Ms. Dinnerstein’s 2011 album, Bach: A Strange Beauty, which topped the Billboard Classical Chart and is one of the few classical albums to make the Billboard Top 200 (best sellers in all music genres). The San Francisco Chronicle called Bach: A Strange Beauty “unadorned but profound bliss,” and The Washington Post raved, “Dinnerstein's readings may be said to plumb these works' genuine depths . . . poised, elegant, wonderfully played.” In conjunction with the album's release, Ms.Dinnerstein was featured on national television by CBS Sunday Morning.

American pianist Simone Dinnerstein has been called "a throwback to such high priestesses of music as Wanda Landowska and Myra Hess," by Slate magazine, and praised by TIME for her "arresting freshness and subtlety." The New York-based pianist gained an international following because of the remarkable success of her recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, which she raised the funds to record. Released in 2007 on Telarc, it ranked No. 1 on the US Billboard Classical Chart in its first week of sales and was named to many "Best of 2007" lists including those of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The New Yorker. Her follow-up album, The Berlin Concert, also gained the No. 1 spot on the Chart.

More about Simone Dinnerstein: Ms. Dinnerstein's performance schedule has taken her around the world since her triumphant New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall in 2005, performing Bach's Goldberg Variations. Recent and upcoming performances include her recital debuts at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Vienna Konzerthaus, and London's Wigmore Hall, the Lincoln Center Mostly Mozart Festival, the Aspen and Ravinia festivals, in Cologne, Paris, London, Copenhagen, Vilnius, Bremen, Rome, and Lisbon, and at the Stuttgart Bach Festival; as well as debut performances with the Vienna Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Kristjan Järvi's Absolute Ensemble, and the Tokyo Symphony. In New York she has performed on Lincoln Center's Great Performers series, and in three sold-out recitals at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She is also a frequent performer at New York's (Le) Poisson Rouge, a club presenting all genres of music.

Ms. Dinnerstein has played concerts throughout the United States for the Piatigorsky Foundation, an organization dedicated to bringing classical music to non-traditional venues. Amongst the places she has played are nursing homes, schools and community centers. Most notably, she gave the first classical music performance in the Louisiana state prison system when she played at the Avoyelles Correctional Center. She also performed at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, in a concert organized by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra to coincide with her BSO debut.

In addition, Ms. Dinnerstein has founded Neighborhood Classics, a concert series open to the public and hosted by New York City public schools. The concerts, which feature musicians Ms. Dinnerstein has admired and collaborated with during her career, raise funds for the schools' Parent Teacher Associations. The musicians performing donate their time and talent to the program. Neighborhood Classics began at PS 321, the Brooklyn public elementary school that her son attends and where her husband teaches fifth grade, and expanded in 2010 to PS 142 on New York's Lower East Side.

Over the past few years, Ms. Dinnerstein has been featured in Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, Classic FM Magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, “O” The Oprah Magazine, TIME, Slate, Stern, Cicero, The Sunday (London) Times Magazine, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Guardian, and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, among others, and has appeared on radio programs including BBC Radio 3's In Tune, BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, NPR's Morning Edition, Public Radio International's Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen, American Public Media's Performance Today, Minnesota Public Radio, XM Radio's Classical Confidential, as part of the news on SIRIUS Satellite Radio's The Howard Stern Show, and on national television in Germany.

Ms. Dinnerstein is a graduate of The Juilliard School where she was a student of Peter Serkin. She was a winner of the Astral Artist National Auditions, and has twice received the Classical Recording Foundation Award. She also studied with Solomon Mikowsky at the Manhattan School of Music and in London with Maria Curcio. Simone Dinnerstein (pronounced See-MOHN-uh DIN-ner-steen) lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and son. She is managed by Tanja Dorn at IMG Artists and is a Sony Classical artist. For more information, please visit www.simonedinnerstein.com.

Celebrate the Season With the PA's Holiday Concert!

The Philharmonic Association has in store for you a wonderful evening celebrating youth artists and the holiday season on December 7, 7:00 pm, in Meymandi Concert Hall. Showcased will be the Triangle Youth Philharmonic and the International Ballet Company of Cary. Members of the Triangle Youth Jazz Ensemble will also provide musical enjoyment in the lobby prior to the concert.

A featured soloist will be TYP Concertmaster Katherine Gilger, in Vivaldi’s Winter.You’ll hear what a shivery winter evening in baroque Italy evokes. The concert will include several Leroy Anderson favorites, including Sleigh Ride, but also Bugler’s Holiday with the TYP trumpet section, Dain Clare, Samuel Jasper, and Stockton Ray as our soloists.

Partly inspired by his children’s appreciation of the festival of lights, Terry Mizesko’s well-loved Chanukah Suite will delight you. It is a three movement work that portrays both the celebratory and the poignant side of this holiday.

Young artists come from many disciplines and we are pleased to premier the Carol Fantasia composed and arranged by a Yorkshire lad of 14 as a Christmas present for his Mother. Christopher Baczkowski has played the violin and piano since he was five, but has only recently shown an interest in composition. It is amazing what he has accomplished!

What would the holidays be without The Nutcracker? There is abundant artistry in the members of the International Ballet Company who will perform five dances from the ballet. After the introductory Marche, you will experience the pas de deux of the Snow King and Queen, the Arabian, Spanish and Chinese dances, and the dramatic Grande Pas de Deux with the Sugar Plum Fairy and her consort.

Bring your friends and family to support and enjoy these impressive young artists! Tickets are only $10 for adults and $5 for senior citizens and school age children.

Ruby Tuesday Give Back December 14

Eat at the Cary Ruby Tuesday on December 14, present them with our flyer, and the Philharmonic Association will receive 20% of everything you spend! Please visit our website to down load the flyer and help support the PA!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 3, 2011
CONTACT: Val Jaskiewicz
734.665.3978
val@sharmusic.com

LOCAL (North Carolina) SCHOOL WINS CONCERT DATE WITH LEGENDARY VIOLINIST MARK O’CONNOR

Raleigh, NC, November 3, 2011 - On Wednesday, December 7th at 7:00 PM, legendary New York City-based violinist/fiddler, composer, and multi-Grammy winning recording artist Mark O’Connor will join the Powell Gifted and Talented Magnet Elementary School Orchestras, led by Orchestra Director Tara Culbreth, for “An American Festival” concert. Sponsored by internationally famous violin company, SHAR Music, and Mr. O’Connor, the concert will be held at the Powell Gifted and Talented Magnet Elementary School, located at 1130 Marlborough Rd. in Raleigh. The program will feature favorite tunes from the popular new O’Connor Orchestra Method, in addition to solo works played by Mr. O’Connor. The public is invited to attend this major event. (Free Admission)

When music educator Tara Culbreth discovered that her school had a chance to win a performance with Mr. O’Connor, valued at tens of thousands of dollars, she immediately envisioned the positive effect that such a concert would have on her students and her school. Encouraging her students’ involvement in writing essays to be submitted to SHAR Music, Ms. Culbreth says she was ecstatic when the winners were announced, and that Powell Elementary School emerged as one of the four national winners, out of the hundreds of schools that entered. The other winning schools are in Florida, Michigan and Texas.

Currently in the fourth decade of a remarkable career, O’Connor has witnessed countless “Aha” moments on the faces of the young participants at his popular nationwide fiddle camps, discovering the pleasures of learning to play familiar songs, performing with others and expressing themselves through improvisation. With an emphasis on improvisation and collaborative engagement, unique among teaching methods, the O’Connor Method aims to put creativity at the center of teaching music. Using familiar American tunes, with their roots in African, Latino, as well as European music, the goal is to equip the 21st Century Musician with the skills and motivation required to succeed and, more importantly, to contribute to America’s rich and broad musical heritage.

Today, the O’Connor Method, although still less than two years in print, has been embraced by countless violin teachers, a testament to its efficacy. “Creative training is essential . . . and getting kids to fall in love with playing music” is the mantra behind the method, says Mr. O’Connor.

Salonen’s “Violin Concerto” wins Grawemeyer music award

Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Violin Concerto has won the 2012 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition.

“I'm deeply, humbly grateful for the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition to be given to my Violin Concerto. With great pride I join the illustrious list of previous recipients, many of whom have been important influences in my life both musically and personally,” says Esa-Pekka Salonen.

The four-movement, half-hour concerto begins with a solitary violin, moves on to embrace a series of themes ranging from a quiet heartbeat to urban pop music and ends on a chord unlike any other in the work, said award director Marc Satterwhite. “The piece is eclectic in its influences but has a distinct personality all its own,” he said.

Salonen conducted the first performance of the Violin Concerto himself at one of his final concerts with the Los Angeles orchestra in 2009. Violinist Leila Josefowicz, who inspired Salonen’s work, played at its premiere. Josefowicz and the Finnish National Radio Symphony will record the piece for commercial release in May.

Salonen’s Violin Concerto was selected for the Grawemeyer Award from among 165 entries. The University of Louisville presents four, $100,000 Grawemeyer Awards each year for outstanding works in music composition, world order, psychology and education.

Click here to listen to the Violin Concerto – Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France at Festival Présences Paris in February 2011 / Leila Josefowicz, Violin.

Statement from Esa-Pekka Salonen:

“The initial impulse for writing a concerto for violin was a very inspiring and enjoyable collaboration with Leila Josefowicz on a number of contemporary works in Los Angeles and Chicago. She plays new music with the same kind of dedication and panache others reserve for Brahms, Beethoven and the rest of the gang.

My long and very happy tenure as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic was coming to an end. After 17 years I had decided it was time to move on and try to devote more time for composing. It felt like a seismic shift in my life, and during the composing process of “Violin Concerto” I felt that I was somehow trying to sum up everything I had learned and experienced up to that point in my life as a musician. This sense of having reached a watershed was heightened by the fact that I turned 50, the kind of number that brutally wipes out any hallucinations of still being young.

There is a strong internal, private narrative in my concerto, and it is not a coincidence that the last movement is called "Adieu.” For myself, the strongest symbol of what I was going through is the very last chord of the piece; a new harmonic idea never heard before in the concerto. I saw it as a door to the next part of my life of which I didn't know so much yet, a departure with all the thrills and fears of the unknown.”

For more information on the award please go to www.grawemeyer.org or contact Marc Satterwhite, marc.satterwhite@louisville.edu, Tel: 001-502-634-0939

Esa-Pekka Salonen is currently in Los Angeles where he conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic in two concert series on 25/26/27 November and 2/3/4 December with the world premiere of “Sirens”, a piece by Anders Hillborg dedicated to Esa-Pekka Salonen, as well as the world premiere of the prologue to Dmitri Shostakovich’s unfinished and long-lost opera “Orango”.

On 8, 9 and 10 December Esa-Pekka Salonen will lead the San Francisco Symphony and violinist Leila Josefowicz in performances of his Violin Concerto. The performances also include Sibelius’ tone poem Pohjola’s Daughter and appearances by soprano Christine Brewer singing Brünnhilde’s Immolation from Wagner’s Götterdämmerung.

In Chicago Esa-Pekka Salonen will conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on 15/16/17 December with a world premiere of Matheson’s Violin Concerto.

25/26/27 November
Los Angeles, Walt Disney Concert Hall
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Beethoven: Leonore Overture No. 2
Beethoven: Piano concerto No. 2
Hillborg: Sirens — world premiere
Anne Sofie von Otter, mezzo-soprano
Hila Plitmann, soprano
Emmanuel Ax, piano
Los Angeles Master Chorale, Grant Gershon

2/3/4 December
Los Angeles, Walt Disney Concert Hall
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Schostakowitsch: Orango — world premiere
Schostakowitsch: Symphony No. 4
Peter Sellars, director

8/9/10 December
San Francisco, Davies Symphony Hall
San Francisco Symphony
Sibelius: Pohjola’s Daughter
Salonen: Violin concerto
Wagner: Excerpts from Der Ring des Nibelungen
Leila Josefowicz, violin
Christine Brewer, soprano

15/16/17 December
Chicago, Symphony Center
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Matheson: Violin concerto — world premiere
Mahler: Sinfonie Nr. 6
Baird Dodge, violin

Please do not hesitate to contact us for further information on Esa-Pekka Salonen, interview enquiries or photos.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: NMR 202-297-3833
info@newmusicraleigh.org

NMR Part of Winning National Grant to Record

November 18, 2011 (Raleigh, NC) - New Music Raleigh has been awarded the Composer Assistance Program - Recording (CAP Recording) grant to record the chamber music of composer D. J. Sparr for Centaur Records. New Music USA, formerly Meet The Composer and the American Music Center, administers the CAP - Recording program that supports first recordings of new music by living American Composers. NMR was one of 15 applicants awarded grants.

President and CEO of New Music USA, Ed Harsh, says of this second-year initiative - Recordings are the vital pipeline for new music to reach the people who love it. We are thrilled to support the realization of these fifteen outstanding projects as they make their way out into the listening world.

New Music Raleigh, Curator, Shawn Galvin, says - We're grateful for the support of New Music USA and honored to be among the projects selected. D. J. Sparr is a close friend of NMR, and we look forward to collaborating on the premiere recording of his chamber works.

CAP Recordings intends to enhance composers' careers by supporting debut recordings of their work. Composers may apply for funds regarding any stage of the recording or post-productions process. CAP Recording was created in 2010 to parallel New Music USA's Composer Assistance Program (CAP). CAP has awarded project-based grants to composers for costs associated with premiere performances of their work since 1962. New Music USA will award a third round of CAP Recording grants in 2012 - deadline July 16. www.newmusicusa.org

D. J. Sparr is an American composer and guitarist fluent in both classical and vernacular musical styles. He has been named the next Young American Composer-in-Residence with the California Symphony where he will write new orchestral works over a two-year period. Sparr’s music has been commissioned and performed by groups such as the Albany Symphony, the Berkshire Symphony, Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Band, the League of Composers’ Orchestra, the Los Angeles “Debut” Orchestra, New Music Detroit, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the University of Washington, the Verge Ensemble, Wet Ink and Yale University. He was awarded the $10,000 grand prize in the orchestra category of the BMG/Williams College National Young Composers Competition. He received BMI Student Composer Awards in 1995 and 2000. Sparr is the composer-in-residence for the Richmond Symphony’s Education and Community Engagement Department (2010-11); and in the summers, he is a faculty member at the Walden School for Musicians.

New Music Raleigh is a collective of dynamic musicians dedicated to presenting outstanding performances of music by living composers. NMR fills a gap in Raleigh’s vibrant music scene, serving as a catalyst for creation and presentation of new music. Whether its through offering works of well established composers, up-and-coming composers, or cross-genre collaborations, NMR creates concert experiences that challenge tradition, engage and inspire diverse audiences, and give voice to today’s most innovative and relevant modern music. Since its founding, NMR has presented music by Steve Reich, John Luther Adams, Missy Mazzoli, Paul Lansky, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Judith Shatin, Belinda Reynolds, and has collaborated with the celebrated indie rock artists, Lost in the Trees and Shara Worden. NMR's Curators are Karen Strittmatter Galvin and Shawn Galvin.

www.newmusicusa.org
www.djsparr.com
www.newmusicraleigh.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NORTH CAROLINA SYMPHONY
October 26, 2011

CONTACT: Jeannie Mellinger
919.789.5484
jmellinger@ncsymphony.org

Itzhak Perlman Performs with North Carolina Symphony, May 15, 2012

Tickets Available Now as Part of Four-Concert Passport Series

RALEIGH, N.C.—The North Carolina Symphony announced today that incomparable violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman will return to the orchestra to perform Tchaikovsky’s scintillating Violin Concerto, capping off a program of Italian-flavored masterworks.

The special event concert, led by Symphony Resident Conductor William Henry Curry, takes place at Meymandi Concert Hall, in downtown Raleigh’s Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts, on Tuesday, May 15, at 7:30 p.m.

Perlman enjoys superstar status rarely afforded a classical musician. In recent years, he took part in the inauguration of President Barack Obama, earned a Kennedy Center Honor for his distinguished achievements and contributions to the cultural and educational life of the United States and performed at a state dinner for the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, hosted by President George W. Bush at the White House, among many other accomplishments.

He joins the Symphony on an evening of masterworks based on Italian themes, including Berlioz’s Roman Carnival Overture and Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien. Perlman then launches into Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, a composition once deemed unplayable that has since become one of the most cherished and popular solos in the violin literature.

Tickets to the performance are available now by phone only as part of the Symphony’s four-concert Passport Series. Made up of programs from the Duke Medicine Classical Series Raleigh, this miniseries takes concertgoers around the world from the comfort of Meymandi Concert Hall by offering rare performances of dramatic works from four world music cultures, with featured performers offering audience members a taste of unique national instruments.

In “Passport to Hungary,” folk song-inspired masterpieces by Kodály and Bartók, as well as Kamilló Lendvay’s Concertino semplice for cimbalom, headline an exploration of a national tradition that has fueled hundreds of composers, at home and abroad, Jan. 13-14, 2012.

“Tango Nuevo” brings all the passion of tango to the concert hall for a showcase of Argentine composers Ástor Piazzolla, Osvaldo Golijov and Alberto Ginastera and a 21st-century piece by Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin, Jan. 27-28, 2012. The concert features performances by bandoneón master Coco Trivisonno.

Symphony Music Director Grant Llewellyn, joined by harpist Catrin Finch, takes orchestra audience members to his home—musically at least—with a concert of masterpieces from his native soil, Wales, in “Grant’s Postcards from Home,” April 20-21, 2012.

Tickets for the four-concert Passport Series, including the performance by Itzhak Perlman, are $155 and available now by phone at 919.733.2750 or toll free 877.627.6724. The Passport Series is presented in partnership with American Airlines.

Any remaining individual seats to the Itzhak Perlman concerts will go on sale online and by phone on Friday, March 30, 2012, at 10:00 a.m. Prices range from $75 to $140. Purchase the Passport Series today before it sells out, and take advantage of huge savings on world-class entertainment.

For complete information on the Passport Series, visit www.ncsymphony.org/passport.

The May 15 concert will be Perlman’s fifth performance with the North Carolina Symphony. He previously performed Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with the orchestra under the baton of Music Director Gerhardt Zimmermann in 1990. He helped launch the Symphony’s 2001 season with a searing rendition of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor and joined Grant Llewellyn for a 2005 concert of works by Dvorák and Saint-Saëns.

Perlman was last with the Symphony in September 2005, when he joined conductor Leonard Slatkin and viola/violin Pinchas Zukerman for Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante in E-flat Major and Bach’s Concerto in D minor for Two Violins.

About the North Carolina Symphony

Founded in 1932, the North Carolina Symphony performs over 175 concerts annually to adults and school children. The orchestra travels extensively throughout the state to venues in over 50 North Carolina counties. The orchestra employs 67 professional musicians under the artistic leadership of Music Director and Conductor Grant Llewellyn, Resident Conductor William Henry Curry and Associate Conductor Sarah Hicks.

Based in downtown Raleigh’s spectacular Meymandi Concert Hall at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts and an outdoor summer venue at Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, N.C., the Symphony performs about 60 concerts annually in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Cary metropolitan area. It also holds regular concert series in Fayetteville, New Bern, Southern Pines and Wilmington and individual concerts in many other North Carolina communities throughout the year.

For tickets, program notes, podcasts, musician profiles, the Symphony blog and more, visit the North Carolina Symphony Web site at www.ncsymphony.org. Call North Carolina Symphony Audience Services at 919.733.2750 or toll free 877.627.6724.

Series Listing:
North Carolina Symphony
Passport Series

Passport to Hungary
Sarah Hicks, Associate Conductor
Dovid Friedlander, violin
Petra Berényi, cimbalom

Kodály: Dances of Galánta
Kamilló Lendvay: Concertino semplice for cimbalom and orchestra
Ravel: Tzigane
Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra

Fri/Sat, Jan 13-14, 2012, 8pm
Meymandi Concert Hall, Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts,
Raleigh

Tango Nuevo
Grant Llewellyn, Music Director
Coco Trivisonno, bandoneón

Osvaldo Golijov: Last Round for Strings
Piazzolla: Concerto for Bandoneón, String Orchestra and Percussion, “Aconcagua”
Elena Kats-Chernin: Re-collecting ASTORoids
Piazzolla: Adiós Nonino
Ginastera: Four Dances from Estancia

Fri/Sat, Jan 27-28, 2012, 8pm
Meymandi Concert Hall, Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts,
Raleigh

Grant’s Postcards from Home
Grant Llewellyn, Music Director
Catrin Finch, harp

Ceiri Torjussen: Momentum
Karl Jenkins: Over the Stone
Pwyll ap Siôn: Gwales
Mathias: Symphony No. 3

Fri/Sat, Apr 20-21, 2012, 8pm
Meymandi Concert Hall, Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts,
Raleigh

Itzhak Perlman
William Henry Curry, Resident Conductor

Berlioz: Roman Carnival Overture
Wagner: Prelude to Act III from Lohengrin
Tchaikovsky: Capriccio Italien, Op. 45
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35

Buy tickets now: 919.733.2750 or toll free 877.627.6724

For Immediate Release
Oct. 24, 2011
Media Contact: Marla Carpenter
336-770-3337
carpem@uncsa.edu

FORMER SCHOOL OF THE ARTS PRESIDENT ROBERT WARD TO RECEIVE "NEA OPERA HONORS"

WINSTON-SALEM - Composer and Durham resident Robert Ward, who served as President (and later, Chancellor) of the then-North Carolina School of the Arts from 1967-74, will receive one of four National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Opera Honors on Thursday, Oct. 27.

Current University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) Chancellor John Mauceri will present the award to Ward during an awards ceremony and concert at the Sidney Harman Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

The event, which kicks off National Opera Week (Oct. 28-Nov. 6), will include performances by tenor Lawrence Brownlee and mezzo-soprano Heather Johnson, video tributes to the honorees, and an onstage conversation moderated by a guest host. It will be webcast live at http://www.arts.gov.

"Robert Ward's contributions to the arts go way beyond the awards he has appropriately received and the music he has left to all of us," said Chancellor Mauceri. "More than anyone, Robert Ward took the great idea of a publicly funded, stand-alone arts university and made it a reality, forging essential relationships and creating the mechanisms by which UNCSA, and schools that have emulated UNCSA, function.

"His decade of service to a great school and the inspiration it has engendered are powerful reminders of how a great artist serves the public in many ways and leaves a lasting gift to society," Mauceri concluded.

The NEA Opera Honors is the nation's highest award in opera, recognizing outstanding artists for their lifetime achievements and contributions to opera in America. Recipients are nominated by the public and are chosen by an NEA-convened panel of opera experts. Past NEA Opera honorees include John Adams, Carlisle Floyd, Marilyn Horne, James Levine, and Leontyne Price.

Being honored along with Ward are stage designer John Conklin of Boston, general director Speight Jenkins of Seattle, and mezzo-soprano Rise Stevens of New York City. The honorees were announced in June by NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman. Each will receive a one-time award of $25,000.

The 2011 NEA Opera Honors are presented in partnership with Opera America.

Robert Ward, composer, conductor, administrator, educator, and publishing executive, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on Sept. 13, 1917. He studied theory, orchestration, and piano as a youth and began composing in high school where his early musical influences include Debussy, Ravel, Hindemith, Stravinsky, and jazz. Ward studied composition with Bernard Rogers and Howard Hanson at the Eastman School of Music from 1935 through 1939. He then studied composition with Frederick Jacobi and conducting with Albert Stoessel and Edgar Schenkman at The Juilliard School from 1939 through 1941. Additional studies in composition occurred with Aaron Copland at the Tanglewood Music Festival in 1940 before entering the military as a bandleader in the US Army from 1942 through 1946. While serving in the Pacific theater of operations, Ward met Mary Benedict, his wife of 62 years with whom he had five children.

After the war he returned to The Juilliard School and received his Artist Certificate in 1946. Ward taught at Juilliard from 1947 to 1956 where he also headed its development office, and at Columbia University from 1946 to 1958. He received three Guggenheim Fellowships (1950, 1951, 1966), and was director of the Third Street Music Settlement from 1952 to 1955. The composer of music in a wide variety of musical genres, Ward's most enduring and well-known work, The Crucible, (1961) won the Pulitzer Prize for Music and the New York Music Critics' Circle Citation Award in 1962 and was composed during his tenure as Executive Vice President/Managing Editor of Galaxy Music Corporation, a position he held from 1956 to 1966. Ward served on numerous boards of directors, and was a member of various organizations such as the American Symphony Orchestra League, the National Opera Institute, the Rockefeller Fund for Music, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Pulitzer Prize for Music.

Ward was president of the then-North Carolina School of the Arts from 1967 to 1974 and was the Mary Duke Biddle Professor of Music at Duke University from 1979 to 1989. His achievements in composition have garnered four honorary doctorates: from the Peabody Conservatory, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Duke University, and North Carolina State University. To date, Ward's catalog of compositions includes eight operas, seven symphonies, three concertos, numerous shorter works for orchestra, music for wind ensemble, compositions for a variety of instrumental chamber groups, two cantatas, various genres for vocal ensembles, and songs for solo voice with accompaniment, among others. His eclectic compositional methods facilitate musical comprehension and reflect various styles used throughout the history of Western art music and, especially in his vocal works, Ward derives both melodic and rhythmic constructions by adapting the syntactic properties of the texts. In this way he achieves a synthesis or internal union of the various expressive elements, thus creating a singular artistic voice within a unified musical structure.

Ward's music is consciously nationalistic and expresses concerns for social and political issues and his interpretation of American idealism. John Mauceri is an internationally acclaimed conductor and Founding Director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra who was named Chancellor of UNCSA in 2006. His distinguished and extraordinary career has taken him not only to more than 25 of the world's greatest opera companies and more than 50 symphony orchestras, but also to the musical stages of Broadway and Hollywood, as well as the most prestigious halls of academia. Maestro Mauceri has served as music director of four opera companies: Washington (National), Scottish (Glasgow), the Teatro Regio (Turin, Italy), and Pittsburgh. He is the first American to have held the post of music director of an opera house in either Great Britain or Italy. He was the first music director of the American Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall after its founding director, Leopold Stokowski, with whom he studied. He was Consultant for Music Theater at Washington's Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for more than a decade, and, for 15 years, he served on the faculty of Yale University. For 18 years, Mauceri worked closely with Leonard Bernstein and conducted many of the composer's premieres at Bernstein's request.

On Broadway, he was co-producer of On Your Toes, and served as musical supervisor for Hal Prince's production of Candide as well as Andrew Lloyd Webber's Song and Dance. He also conducted the orchestra for the film version of Evita. Among his many awards and honors are a Tony, Grammy, Billboard, Olivier, and two Emmys. Last year, his recording of Erich Korngold's Between Two Worlds was selected by Gramophone magazine as one of the 250 Greatest Recordings of All Time. In April, Gramophone named two of his recordings with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra among the "10 great studio re-creations" of classic movie soundtracks. Chancellor Mauceri holds the lifetime title of Founding Director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, which was created for him in 1991 by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and with whom he led over 300 concerts to a total audience of over 4 million people. He has written for and appeared on radio and television and has delivered keynote speeches and papers for major artistic and educational institutions, such as Harvard University, the American Academy in Berlin, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the American Musicological Society, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

He recently published articles for Cambridge University Press and Gramophone magazine. The University of North Carolina School of the Arts is the first state-supported, residential school of its kind in the nation. Established as the North Carolina School of the Arts by the N.C. General Assembly in 1963, UNCSA opened in Winston-Salem ("The City of Arts and Innovation") in 1965 and became part of the University of North Carolina system in 1972. More than 1,100 students from high school through graduate school train for careers in the arts in five professional schools: Dance, Design and Production (including a Visual Arts Program), Drama, Filmmaking, and Music. UNCSA is the state's only public arts conservatory, dedicated entirely to the professional training of talented students in the performing, visual and moving image arts. For more information, visit www.uncsa.edu.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NORTH CAROLINA SYMPHONY
October 3, 2011
CONTACT: Jeannie Mellinger
919.789.5484
jmellinger@ncsymphony.org

Ignat Solzhenitsyn Joins North Carolina Symphony for Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto, Part of “Zarathustra,” Oct. 27-29

Concert Launches Four-Concert “Piano Icons” Miniseries

RALEIGH, N.C.—The theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey launches a concert to remember later this month when the North Carolina Symphony, led by Maestro William Henry Curry and joined by renowned pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn, presents works by three of classical music’s leading lights.

“Zarathustra,” featuring blockbuster music by Strauss, Beethoven and Wagner, takes place in Memorial Hall on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Thursday, Oct. 27. The performances continue at Meymandi Concert Hall, in downtown Raleigh’s Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts, on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 28-29. All three concerts begin at 8:00 p.m.

The evenings begin with some of the most famous opening notes in all of music, Richard Strauss’s deep and commanding tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra, most famously used in the opening scenes of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

“Strauss’s tone poems are all unique,” says Symphony Music Director Grant Llewellyn. “They’re all wonderful. This one is a very interesting blend of the intellectual and the visceral, and it’s intriguing to me to see Also sprach Zarathustra, with all of the philosophical implications behind the literature that inspired Strauss, with Solzhenitsyn’s name on the same program.”

The Solzhenitsyn in question is celebrated pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn, son of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and recognized as one of today’s most gifted artists, enjoying an active career as both pianist and conductor. His extensive touring schedule has recently included concerto performances with major orchestras across the world, from Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington to London, Zurich, Tokyo and Sydney.

He is particularly well-known for his interpretations of Beethoven. “Great Beethoven performances don't come along all that often,” wrote the Philadelphia Inquirer following a 2008 concert by the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, which Solzhenitsyn led as principal conductor for six years. “Under Ignat Solzhenitsyn, the group has been a revitalizing force with Beethoven, but now more than ever.”

Good thing for Triangle concertgoers, as Solzhenitsyn joins the North Carolina Symphony to perform one of Beethoven’s most beloved compositions, the tender and lovely Fourth Piano Concerto.

“[Here] the piano concerto once and for all shakes itself loose from the 18th century,” wrote American musicologist Milton Cross about the Fourth. “Virtuosity no longer concerns Beethoven at all; his artistic aim here, as in his symphonies and quartets, is the expression of deeply poetic and introspective thoughts.”

The tender piece is a perfect balance to the evening’s rousing finish: Wagner’s stately Overture to Tannhäuser. “Pure unadulterated orchestral power,” says Llewellyn of the Overture, a bold finish to any concert from the first of Wagner’s operas to be staged in the United States.

“Zarathustra” is part of the Symphony’s four-concert miniseries “Piano Icons.” The miniseries, made up of programs from the larger Duke Medicine Classical Series Raleigh, showcases five world-class soloists as they perform the breakthrough works of music’s most accomplished pianist-composers.

Solzhenitsyn is followed in the miniseries by the incredible Louis Lortie playing dark and luscious masterworks by Liszt and Rachmaninoff on Nov. 11-12. Visit www.ncsymphony.org for this exciting opportunity to save. “Piano Icons” is presented in partnership with Fidelity Investments.

Regular tickets to the Duke Medicine Classical Series Raleigh performances of “Zarathustra” on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 28-29 range from $40 to $70, with $40 tickets for seniors.

Tickets to the Chapel Hill Series performance on Thursday, Oct. 27 range from $40 to $60, with $40 tickets for seniors.

Students receive $10 tickets at both venues.

Meymandi Concert Hall is located in the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts, 2 E. South St., in Raleigh. Memorial Hall is located on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus, at 208 E. Cameron Ave.

Beyond the Stage

Pre-concert talks are held before Symphony concerts across the state. These engaging conversations offer a unique perspective on the evening’s featured composers, the chance to ask questions and hear the inside story on what to listen for.

For “Zarathustra,” Dr. Letita Glozer of UNC-Chapel Hill will present a pre-concert talk at UNC’s Gerard Hall on Thursday, Oct. 27 at 7:00 p.m.

In Raleigh, Dr. Jonathan Kramer of North Carolina State University will present pre-concert talks in the Meymandi Concert Hall lobby on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 28-29, at 7:00 p.m.

About the North Carolina Symphony

Founded in 1932, the North Carolina Symphony performs over 175 concerts annually to adults and school children. The orchestra travels extensively throughout the state to venues in over 50 North Carolina counties. The orchestra employs 67 professional musicians under the artistic leadership of Music Director and Conductor Grant Llewellyn, Resident Conductor William Henry Curry and Associate Conductor Sarah Hicks.

Based in downtown Raleigh’s spectacular Meymandi Concert Hall at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts and an outdoor summer venue at Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, N.C., the Symphony performs about 60 concerts annually in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Cary metropolitan area. It also holds regular concert series in Fayetteville, New Bern, Southern Pines and Wilmington and individual concerts in many other North Carolina communities throughout the year.

For tickets, program notes, podcasts, musician profiles, the Symphony blog and more, visit the North Carolina Symphony Web site at www.ncsymphony.org. Call North Carolina Symphony Audience Services at 919.733.2750 or toll free 877.627.6724.

Concert/Event Listing:
North Carolina Symphony
Zarathustra

William Henry Curry, Resident Conductor
Ignat Solzhenitsyn, piano

Thur, Oct 27, 2011, 8pm
Memorial Hall, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Fri/Sat, Oct 28-29, 2011, 8pm
Meymandi Concert Hall
Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts
Raleigh, NC

Program Listing:
North Carolina Symphony
Zarathustra
William Henry Curry, Resident Conductor
Ignat Solzhenitsyn, piano
October 27-29, 2011

Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30
Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Prologue: Sunrise — Of the Inhabitants of the Unseen World — Of the Great Longing —
Of Joys and Passions — The Dirge — Of Science — The Convalescent
— The Dance-Song —
The Night Wanderer’s Song

Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
I. Allegro moderato
II. Andante con moto —
III. Rondo: Vivace
Ignat Solzhenitsyn, piano

Overture to Tannhäuser
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)

For Immediate Release
Sept. 27, 2011
Media Contacts: Marla Carpenter
336-770-3337
carpem@uncsa.edu
Steve Volstad
919-549-7173
svolstad@unctv.org

UNCSA’S ACCLAIMED, ALL-SCHOOL PRODUCTION OF RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN’S OKLAHOMA! TO AIR WEDNESDAY, OCT. 12, ON UNC-TV

WINSTON-SALEM – Citizens from Murphy to Manteo will soon get their chance to see what Winston-Salem audiences fell in love with last spring: the University of North Carolina School of the Arts’ all-school production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!

The popularly and critically acclaimed production was filmed in HD and will be aired on UNC-TV on Wednesday, Oct. 12, from 8-11 p.m. The TV production will be hosted by UNCSA Chancellor John Mauceri, who served as musical director and artistic supervisor of the stage production.

The TV production is made possible by a half-a-million-dollar grant from the A.J. Fletcher Foundation of Raleigh. The gift, $100,000 a year for five years, will expose statewide audiences to UNCSA’s talented students by broadcasting their performances over UNC-TV. Oklahoma! is the first UNCSA production to be filmed and aired over UNC-TV with the grant. “The UNC system is unique in many ways,” Chancellor Mauceri said.

“Two of them are in having a system-wide arts conservatory, UNCSA, and another is in having a system-wide television network, UNC-TV. It seemed only natural to me that we find a way for these two institutions to work together. The Fletcher Foundation has shared in that vision, making this fantastic dream a reality.

“Surely this will be a tremendous way for UNCSA to say ‘thank you’ to the people of North Carolina,” Mauceri added, “and for our citizens throughout the state to share in the astonishing achievements of our student artists.”

UNC-TV Director and General Manager Tom Howe said: “We appreciate the opportunity to be able to use this ground-breaking grant to enrich the unique services to the state provided by UNC-TV and UNCSA, and to enhance North Carolina's cultural experience. UNC-TV has a rich tradition of bringing performance and cultural programming to a statewide audience, so this joint effort is a perfect fit for us.”

Additional support was provided by the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts and the William R. Kenan, Jr. Fund for the Arts, which facilitated the hiring of accomplished television director David Stern to helm the cameras and UNCSA School of Filmmaking alumnus Andrew Young to serve as associate director and editor of the project.

“The Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts is excited about leveraging the artistic resources of the state of North Carolina with this unique project,” said Margaret S. Mertz, executive director of the Kenan Institute for the Arts. “Putting the technical resources of public television together with the state's professional training program for emerging artists, directed by professionals experienced in filming live performances is truly a one-of-a-kind public-private partnership. This broadcast will be the first of many that will benefit all the citizens of North Carolina.”

Emmy Award-winner David Stern is a prolific TV director, producer and writer. In addition to Oklahoma!, his recent projects include 9/11 Memorial from Ground Zero / Tenth Anniversary, Restoring Courage: Jerusalem 2011, Transcendent Man: Live with Ray Kurzweil, The Importance of Being Ernest (all 2011); A Prairie Home Companion Live in HD! Again! (2010); This American Life Live! (2009); A Christmas Celtic Sojourn Live (2007); Broadway Under the Stars (2006); and many more. He also was recently nominated for a Tony Award as a producer of The Scottsboro Boys on Broadway.

More than 10,000 people saw UNCSA’s faithful restoration of the original 1943 Broadway production, which played April 28-May 8 at the school’s Roger L. Stevens Center in Winston-Salem. Among the acclaim:

“Oklahoma! is a hit from start to end. … This Oklahoma! is no ‘student’ performance but one worthy of the best professional theater in any major city in the country – first-rate acting, singing, dancing, and playing made this event the major entertainment event of the season, bar none! – Classical Voice North Carolina

“From the first note, the sheer energy of the show comes at you at once, like . . . well, like wind sweepin’ down a plain. – savorNC

“To say the show was awesome would be the understatement of the century. From the actors to the costumes, Oklahoma! wowed me the whole way through.” – Life in Forsyth

“The color and energy on stage dazzle and delight the eye. The voices and orchestra tantalize the ear. You'll be humming for days and maybe even kicking up your heels… .” – Winston-Salem Journal

The show and accompanying gala generated more than $330,000 for student scholarships at UNCSA.

When Oklahoma! opened on Broadway in 1943, it transformed musical theatre with its innovative integration of words, music, dance and design. UNCSA’s restoration includes the original Agnes de Mille choreography. In addition, UNCSA extensively researched all aspects of the original production and painstakingly recreated the original costumes and stage designs.

Theodore Chapin, President and Executive Director of The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, said, “For John Mauceri to conceive the idea of an Oklahoma! as close to exactly how it was when it opened may seem like a simple idea, but no one has had it before. It is sure to add an invaluable piece to both the historic and performance history of a musical that has long been acknowledged as the one that galvanized an entertainment genre into an American art form.”

The University of North Carolina School of the Arts is the first state-supported, residential school of its kind in the nation. Established as the North Carolina School of the Arts by the N.C. General Assembly in 1963, UNCSA opened in Winston-Salem (“The City of Arts and Innovation”) in 1965 and became part of the University of North Carolina system in 1972. More than 1,100 students from high school through graduate school train for careers in the arts in five professional schools: Dance, Design and Production (including a Visual Arts Program), Drama, Filmmaking, and Music. UNCSA is the state’s only public arts conservatory, dedicated entirely to the professional training of talented students in the performing, visual and moving image arts. For more information, visit www.uncsa.edu.

UNC-TV is North Carolina's statewide public television network, made possible by a unique combination of public funding and private support. UNC-TV's unique programs and services provide people of all ages with enriching, life-changing television. For more information, visit www.unctv.org.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
September 20, 2011
Contact: Jerome Davis coalartisticdir@ncrrbiz.com
Website: http://www.burningcoal.org/
BURNING COAL THEATRE COMPANY SM

Shakespeare on Stage and in Class this October

This October, Burning Coal Theatre Company continues its education outreach programs to Triangle area schools, with performances, productions and classes.

On the performance side, Burning Coal will tour SHAKESCENES to Carroll Middle School. Combining scenes from Shakespeare's plays with interactive exercises and discussion, SHAKESCENES is a fast, fun introduction to the Bard for elementary and middle school audiences.

Burning Coal will get more in depth with Shakespeare in a special partnership with Mallarme Chamber Players and Durham Nativity School. Starting in October, Burning Coal will visit the school each week to explore Shakespeare's HENRY V. The residency will culminate in December, when students visit Burning Coal to see our high flying aerial gymnastics fueled production of the play.

Also this month, Raleigh Charter High School will perform KALIDESCOPE, a musical and dramatic revue, at Burning Coal's home theatre, The Murphey School Auditorium (224 Polk St., Raleigh). The performance will feature musical direction by Burning Coal Director of Education Ian Finley and will run October 20 - 22.

For further information on Burning Coal's ongoing education programming, contact us at (919) 834-4001 or coalartisticdir@ncrrbiz.com.

Burning Coal Theatre Company is one of Raleigh's professional theatre companies. Burning Coal is an incorporated, non-profit [501 (c) (3)] organization. Burning Coal's mission is to produce literate, visceral, affecting theatre that is experienced, not simply seen. Burning Coal produces overlooked classic and modern plays, as well as new plays, whose themes and issues are of immediate concern to our audience, using the best local, national and international artists available. We work toward a theatre of high-energy performances and minimalist production values. The emphasis is on literate works that are felt and experienced viscerally, unlike more traditional linear plays, at which audiences are most often asked to observe without participating. Race and gender non-specific casting is an integral component of our perspective, as well as an international viewpoint. Burning Coal and its education programming are supported by grants from several agencies, including the North Carolina Arts Council, the United Arts Council of Wake County, and the City of Raleigh Arts Commission.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sept. 16, 2011
Media Contact: Marla Carpenter
336-770-3337
carpem@uncsa.edu

UNCSA FILM ALUMNUS WINS EMMY AWARD
Multiple Alumni Have Ties to Emmys

WINSTON-SALEM - Several alumni of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) have ties to the Emmy Awards, including one graduate who won in a category announced on Sept. 10.

Zach Seivers (School of Filmmaking, Class of 2006, Editing & Sound) won the award for Outstanding Sound Editing for Nonfiction Programming for his work on Gettysburg (History Channel).

Seivers' Emmy is a source of pride and affirmation for the School of Filmmaking, according to Dean Jordan Kerner, producer of such hit feature films as THE SMURFS, CHARLOTTE'S WEB, THE THREE MUSKETEERS, and FRIED GREEN TOMATOES. "At this skyrocketing School of Filmmaking, we aspire to the highest caliber of teaching and film experience for every filmmaker in each of our disciplines," Kerner said. "Zach is an artist at the top of his game at a very young age.

"This award is further evidence that the film and television industry leaders recognize and appreciate the astonishing skills of our alumni," Kerner added.

The Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony will be broadcast live from Los Angeles beginning at 8 p.m. ET Sunday on the Fox Television Network. Some awards for creative and technical categories are announced early, during the Creative Arts Emmy ceremony, which was held last Saturday in Los Angeles. The Creative Arts ceremony will be televised on the Reelz Channel this Saturday, Sept. 17, at 8 p.m. ET.

Also announced last week was the award for Outstanding Directing in a Variety, Music or Comedy Special, which went to the director of Sondheim! The Birthday Concert (PBS). Matt Cowart (School of Drama, Class of 2004, Directing) was co-producer and assistant director for that show.

Two UNCSA alumni have ties to DirecTV's Friday Night Lights, which is nominated for four Emmys to be presented Sunday. Adam Christopher Banks (School of Filmmaking, Class of 2006, Producing) served as post-production supervisor, and Matt Lauria (School of Drama, Class of 2007, Acting) played Luke Cafferty on the series. Friday Night Lights is nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor (Kyle Chandler), Outstanding Lead Actress (Connie Britton), Outstanding Writing, and Outstanding Drama Series.

Zach Seivers is originally from Mount Airy. This was his first Emmy Award nomination. He was sound designer on Gettysburg, and shares his award with sound editors Charles Maynes, who was a guest artist in the School of Filmmaking in January 2006, and Brent Kiser. Seivers is chief operating officer of SNAPSOUND, a post-production sound company located in Los Angeles.

Many other UNCSA film alumni worked on Gettysburg, which was nominated for seven awards, and won four. Matt Goldberg (Class of 2004, Producing) was line producer, and is head of production at Herzog-Cowen Entertainment, which co-produced the film along with Scott Free Productions. John Maynard (Class of 2009, Editing & Sound) was assistant sound editor, and Justin Davey (Class of 2008, Editing and Sound) was additional sound re-recording mixer.

In addition to Seivers' win for sound editing, Gettysburg won for Outstanding Nonfiction Special, Outstanding Costumes and Outstanding Visual Effects.

UNCSA alumni have won numerous other Emmy Awards in the past. Additionally, UNCSA Chancellor John Mauceri has won two Emmys: one for writing, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra broadcast (1994); and one for on-camera performance, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra broadcast (1998).

The Emmy Awards are administered by three sister organizations that focus on various sectors of television programming: The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (prime time), the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (daytime, sports, news and documentary), and the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (international). The awards recognize excellence within various areas of the television industry, and are a symbol of peer recognition from more than 15,000 members of the Academy. Each member casts a ballot for the category of competition in their field of expertise.

The University of North Carolina School of the Arts is the first state-supported, residential school of its kind in the nation. Established as the North Carolina School of the Arts by the N.C. General Assembly in 1963, UNCSA opened in Winston-Salem ("The City of Arts and Innovation") in 1965 and became part of the University of North Carolina system in 1972. More than 1,100 students from high school through graduate school train for careers in the arts in five professional schools: Dance, Design and Production (including a Visual Arts Program), Drama, Filmmaking, and Music. UNCSA is the state's only public arts conservatory, dedicated entirely to the professional training of talented students in the performing, visual and moving image arts. For more information, visit www.uncsa.edu.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 13, 2011
Contact: Katie Wyatt
Executive Director, KidZNotes
919.451.0077
wyatt.kidznotes@gmail.com

Jeannie Mellinger, Director of Communications
North Carolina Symphony
919.789.5484
jmellinger@ncsymphony.org

KidZNotes and North Carolina Symphony Announce New Partnership

DURHAM, N.C.—KidZNotes marks its first year by announcing an exciting new partnership with the North Carolina Symphony. The two organizations will celebrate together at KidZNotes’ launch ceremony this Saturday, Sept. 17 at 10:30 a.m., at the Holton Career and Resource Center at 401 N. Driver St. in Durham, N.C.

KidZNotes, which is modeled after Venezuela’s highly successful El Sistema program, uses the transformational power of classical music to help build new futures for children, targeting those who would otherwise be blocked by economic and social barriers. Established last year in East Durham, KidZNotes enriches the lives elementary school students and their families through music. Participants in the program learn to play violin and receive free orchestra training in a safe environment that emphasizes fun, joy and teamwork in learning as well as musical accomplishment.

Presenting and supporting an extensive education program for North Carolina schoolchildren has always been a major priority of the North Carolina Symphony. Through this collaboration the organization will offer its education and community engagement concerts and programs free of charge to KidZNotes students and their families.

Scott Lindroth, Vice Provost of the Arts for Duke University, and David Reese, head of the East Durham Children’s Initiative, will join North Carolina Symphony President and CEO Sandi M.A. Macdonald; Director of Education Jessica Nalbone; and principal cello Bonnie Thron as special guests. KidZNotes students will receive their new instruments and the kick-off will conclude with an informal reception.

“We’re thrilled about this important opportunity for our students,” says KidZNotes Executive Director Katie Wyatt. “In Venezuela’s El Sistema, the youth orchestras there have a deep relationship with some of the best orchestras and conductors in the world. The North Carolina Symphony is home to the best musicians and conductors in our state, and attracts world-class artists from the international community. Through an intense practice of classical music, we’re teaching them they can do and be anything.”

Symphony Director of Education Jessica Nalbone adds, “The North Carolina Symphony is proud to partner with KidZNotes and support this new initiative in Durham. Through this partnership, we intend to offer access to the span of our educational programming, ensuring opportunities for underserved populations that will foster a lifelong love for and involvement in classical music. This is the start of an exciting venture, and one which aligns wholly with our orchestra’s mission to serve North Carolina’s students through music.”

About KidZNotes

KidZNotes is expanding in its second year to enroll 100 students in need at four low-income schools in East Durham: Eastway Elementary, Y.E. Smith Elementary, E.K. Powe Elementary and Club Boulevard Humanities Magnet Elementary. KidZNotes provides instruments and nearly ten hours a week of free music instruction for their 100 students. KidZNotes is sponsored by Duke University, Durham Public Schools, Durham Parks and Recreation, the Durham Arts Council and the East Durham Children’s Initiative.

KidZNotes is inspired by El Sistema, the social-reform orchestra program for children and families in poverty in Venezuela. Information about KidZNotes’ calendar and opportunities for support will be available at the event, and are listed at www.kidznotes.org. Donations of financial support and musical instruments will be gratefully received.

About the North Carolina Symphony

Founded in 1932, the North Carolina Symphony performs over 175 concerts annually to adults and school children. The orchestra travels extensively throughout the state to venues in over 50 North Carolina counties. The orchestra employs 67 professional musicians under the artistic leadership of Music Director and Conductor Grant Llewellyn, Resident Conductor William Henry Curry and Associate Conductor Sarah Hicks.

Based in downtown Raleigh’s spectacular Meymandi Concert Hall at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts and an outdoor summer venue at Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, N.C., the Symphony performs about 60 concerts annually in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Cary metropolitan area. It also holds regular concert series in Fayetteville, New Bern, Southern Pines and Wilmington and individual concerts in many other North Carolina communities throughout the year.

For tickets, program notes, podcasts, musician profiles, the Symphony blog and more, visit the North Carolina Symphony Web site at www.ncsymphony.org. Call North Carolina Symphony Audience Services at 919.733.2750 or toll free 877.627.6724.

CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL TO LAUNCH IN SOUTH KOREA
Artistic Directors: David Finckel and Wu Han
CHAMBER MUSIC TODAY
December 10-13, 2011
Seoul Arts Center

Cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han are thrilled to announce the launch of Chamber Music Today, a new chamber music festival that will take place annually in Seoul, South Korea. The inaugural festival will run December 10-13, 2011 at the IBK Chamber Hall of the new Seoul Arts Center. One of the first festivals of its kind established in the Far East, Chamber Music Today will play a vital role in Korea's burgeoning chamber music scene, presenting the world's most esteemed artists. In its inaugural season, Chamber Music Today will welcome two world-class string quartets, each representing the pinnacle of their generation. The nine-time Grammy-award winning Emerson String Quartetwill begin the festival with two performances followed by the Jupiter String Quartet, recent recipients of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, who will perform a concert with Chamber Music TodayArtistic DirectorWu Han. The festival will close with a performance featuring Artistic DirectorsDavid Finckel and Wu Han, joined by Emerson String Quartet violinist Philip Setzer.

About the inaugural festival, David Finckel and Wu Han commented: "Chamber music is the music of friends. It is an international language that brings people together, and is, at the same time, one of the richest art forms on earth.

Chamber Music Today will bring the greatest chamber music repertoire and performers to S. Korea. In every concert, we will hear why chamber music has become an exciting, personal and essential experience for audiences around the world. We look forward not only to performing for S. Korea's audience, but also to watching our music form unbreakable bonds of friendship between musicians and listeners. It will be a delight to witness this extraordinary project blossom, as we share in the magical power of chamber music - truly the greatest music of today."

Chamber Music Today is sponsored by LG Uplus Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of LG Corp.

ABOUT THE ARTISTIC DIRECTORS

The Festival's Artistic Directors David Finckel and Wu Han are two of today's most esteemed and influential classical musicians. Their appearances currently take them to the world's most prestigious concert series and festivals as soloists, as a duo, and, in David Finckel's case, as a member of the Grammy Award-winning Emerson String Quartet. In addition, they are the creators of classical music's first musician-directed and Internet-based recording label, ArtistLed, a trendsetting industry innovation that will soon release its 13th recording. Together, David Finckel and Wu Han have a unique ability to envision and realize innovative projects, be it in the recording arena with ArtistLed, on the world's great concert stages, or as directors of esteemed arts institutions.

In recent years, David Finckel and Wu Han have become widely recognized for their initiatives in expanding audiences for classical music and for guiding the careers of countless young musicians. In 2003, they founded Music@Menlo, the internationally acclaimed chamber music festival and institute that is held each summer in the San Francisco Bay area. In recognition of their widespread contributions to the field of chamber music and their artistic excellence both on and off the stage, David Finckel and Wu Han were also appointed Artistic Directors of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 2004. Recent international initiatives have included the establishment of residencies in Mecklenburg, Germany; Taipei, Taiwan; Wigmore Hall in London; and an innovative teaching and performing residency with the LG-Lincoln Center Chamber Music School in Seoul, South Korea.

For more information, visit www.davidfinckelandwuhan.com

Durham, NC – August 9, 2011 – Zenph Sound Innovations and Raleigh Little Theatre announce dates for their newest live production, Zenph Presents Jazz Legends: Gershwin At The Piano.

The show provides the thrill of actually being in the room to hear and watch George Gershwin play. The Wall Street Journal described Zenph’s work as “a technological miracle,” and The Newport Daily News reviewed the Gershwin show’s recent world premiere at the 2011 Newport Music Festival as, “Gershwin, as it was meant to be.” The groundbreaking technology that drives the show was developed by Zenph Sound Innovations, a company headquartered in the Triangle.

The show will run September 15th through October 2nd at the Raleigh Little Theatre's Gaddy-Goodwin Teaching Theatre. The production looks at George Gershwin’s piano legacy in a way not possible before Zenph, comparing how he played with what he published. It incorporates rare film footage of Gershwin, imagery from the Gershwin estate (including his artwork), and the pièce de résistance—the composer playing all his solo performances on a concert grand piano onstage.

“I was familiar with what Gershwin published my whole life, but it didn’t prepare me for hearing what he didn’t publish: unheard of jokes, runs, quotes, riffs – his publications aren’t the last word, they’re the tip of the iceberg,” noted Dr. John Q. Walker, Zenph co-founder and often the show’s enthusiastic host. “The ability to sit in the room, and see and hear George Gershwin himself play is amazing. On that night, that experience isn’t possible anywhere else on Earth, and it’s happening right here in the Triangle.” Walker said.

These piano performances, called Re-performances®, are the result of Zenph’s high-resolution process which precisely extracts every note, pedal movement, and nuance from Gershwin’s original playing, resulting in breathtaking and often never-before- heard renditions of Gershwin’s piano mastery.

“This show is great fun for the audience and for me as a pianist,” said Philip Amalong, one of the show’s concert pianists who is a Zenph performance analyst and noted touring pianist in his own right. “I play the Gershwin music just as it was published, and then we get to hear the man himself play the compositions. The differences are dramatic, and everyone – whether they’re a Gershwin fan or have never heard of him – walks away humming his irresistible tunes with a new insight into his music.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact:
Brian Van Norman
919.232.5008
brian@articulon.com

The Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle Hosts Annual Gala September 18

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (September 9, 2011) – The Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle (www.thecot.org), a performance-based organization in Durham County, is hosting its 14th annual fundraising gala on September 18, 2011. Proceeds from the event will benefit the orchestra and help underwrite its 2011-2012 season concerts.

The gala will take place from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Whitehall at the Villa, 1213 E. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, N.C. Ticket and additional information may be found by calling 919.360.3382.

“We are thrilled to once again host our spectacular gala,” says David Lindquist, board chairman for The Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle. “Each year friends of the orchestra gather for a delightful evening, and enjoy the light-hearted competition bidding on auction items.”

Titled “A Little Night Music XIV,” the event will feature an evening filled with chamber music, food, wine and a silent auction. Members of the orchestra will perform two delightful programs for guests. These include:

• Franz Schubert’s “String Trio in B flat Major, D. 471”
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Souvenire de Florence first movement Opus 70 Allegro con spirito”
• Ludwig van Beethoven’s “String Trio in E flat Major op. 3”

Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans is serving as honorary chair for “A Little Night Music XIV.” She has served the Triangle community in a myriad of ways and is a longtime supporter of The COT and the performing arts scene.

“I am so pleased to support the Chamber Orchestra as it has been dear to my heart for nearly 30 years—a true treasure for our state,” says Semans. “My late husband and I were instrumental in bringing Maestro Muti to North Carolina and to the orchestra—their joint success is a matter of great happiness to me.”

For a 23rd year, Lorenzo Muti will lead The COT as artistic director and conductor. He has been instrumental in developing the orchestra’s elite corps of musicians into one of the top professional ensembles in North Carolina and the Southeast.

The 2011-2012 season will feature five concerts:

• October 16, 2011 – “ The Classical Style”
• November 13, 2011 – “Basically Bach”
• January 15, 2012 – “ Masters of Orchestration”
• March 18, 2012 – “The Titan and Sacred Music”
• May 20, 2012 – “A Journey Through Spain”

About the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle:

Since 1982, The Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle has been received with genuine respect and enthusiasm by music critics and the community. Today, it is considered one of the finest professional ensembles in North Carolina and the Southeast. With its elite corps of musicians, the orchestra continues to present a well-chosen and unusual repertoire that delights audiences and evokes high praise from critics. That standard of excellence has become the hallmark of the orchestra and has distinguished each succeeding season. The 2011-2012 series marks its 29th concert season. For more information, visit www.thecot.org or call 919.360.3382.

NORTH CAROLINA SYMPHONY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 12, 2011

CONTACT: Jeannie Mellinger
919.789.5484
jmellinger@ncsymphony.org

Renowned Guest Artists Join North Carolina Symphony
for “Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony”

Concerts in Raleigh and Southern Pines Highlight
Tchaikovsky, Sibelius and Soro, Oct. 13-15

RALEIGH, N.C.—The North Carolina Symphony brings a musical tour-de-force to Raleigh and Southern Pines when two internationally renowned guest artists, conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya and violin Augustin Hadelich, join forces with the orchestra for a pair of powerhouse masterworks: Sibelius’s Violin Concerto and Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony.

The concerts, titled “Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony,” begin at Lee Auditorium at Pinecrest High School in Southern Pines on Thursday, Oct. 13, followed by weekend performances at Meymandi Concert Hall in downtown Raleigh’s Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Friday and Saturday, Oct. 14-15. All three concerts begin at 8:00 p.m.

Described by the Cleveland Plain Dealer as “one of the most exciting young conductors on the international scene,” Harth-Bedoya has been the music director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra since 2000. The artistic growth of that up-and-coming organization has turned its young maestro into one of the most sought-after conductors in the world. Harth-Bedoya has appeared with orchestras and operas from New York, Chicago and Boston to London, Berlin, Paris and Sydney.

He is joined on stage by Augustin Hadelich, a soloist who has “easily confirmed his place on the shortlist of today’s top violin virtuosos,” according to the Denver Post, and himself has earned unstinted praise for appearances with many of the world’s most celebrated orchestras.

Harth-Bedoya and Hadelich made their Carnegie Hall debuts together in 2008 in a performance of the Brahms Double Concerto with cellist Alban Gerhardt and the Fort Worth Symphony. The evening’s program also included a certain symphony by Tchaikovsky. “The dynamic young conductor…and his players lived up to expectations,” wrote The New York Times following that concert, “especially with their assured, rich-hued and impassioned account of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony.”

Harth-Bedoya brings this noteworthy declaration to the North Carolina Symphony for its own reading of Tchaikovsky’s symphonic masterpiece.

“The Fifth Symphony is splendid music, grand and dignified,” wrote Tchaikovsky biographers Lawrence and Elisabeth Hanson, “and its form expresses the content more satisfactorily than in any other of Tchaikovsky’s large works for orchestra…[I]t is from first note to last noble. Never querulous, never playing to the gallery, it exposes the soul of a man which all must feel the better for knowing.”

Hadelich is featured in the program on Sibelius’s provocative and challenging Violin Concerto. Written at the peak of the composer’s early success, the Concerto displays Sibelius’s own proclivity for the violin, the instrument on which he specialized and only reluctantly gave up. It is a dark and emotional piece, brilliantly evoking “the sonorous halflights of autumn and winter,” according to biographer Eric Tawaststjerna, through music that remains an absolute favorite among violin solos.

“It is one of the most complete concertos for violin,” says North Carolina Symphony Music Director Grant Llewellyn. “It’s very thorny, rugged, but brilliant as well. It’s everything that is so great about Sibelius. It explores aspects of the violin that were unprecedented at the time.”

The concert is completed by a feisty work from Harth-Bedoya’s home continent of South America. Enrique Soro’s Danza fantástica is an exuberant blend of Soro’s Chilean heritage with his Italian training – one brilliant and propulsive, the other lyrical and rhapsodic.

“It’s a sort of dash for orchestra,” adds Llewellyn, “which makes a nice contrast to the Sibelius.”

Regular tickets to the Duke Medicine Classical Series Raleigh performances of “Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony” on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 14-15 range from $33 to $63, with $30 tickets for seniors. Regular tickets to the Southern Pines Series performance on Thursday, Oct. 13 range from $27 to $42.

Students receive $10 tickets in both venues.

Meymandi Concert Hall is located in the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts, 2 E. South St., in Raleigh. Lee Auditorium is located at Pinecrest High School, 100 Pinecrest School Road, in Southern Pines.

Beyond the Stage

Pre-concert talks and “Meet the Artist” events are held before Symphony concerts across the state. These engaging conversations offer a unique perspective on the evening’s featured composers, the chance to ask questions and hear the inside story on what to listen for.

For “Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony,” Josiah Stevenson will host “Meet the Artists” in the Pinecrest High School band room on Thursday, Oct. 13 at 6:45 p.m.

In Raleigh, Dr. Randolph Foy of North Carolina State University will present a pre-concert talk in the Meymandi Concert Hall lobby on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 14-15 at 7:00 p.m.

About the North Carolina Symphony

Founded in 1932, the North Carolina Symphony performs over 175 concerts annually to adults and school children. The orchestra travels extensively throughout the state to venues in over 50 North Carolina counties. The orchestra employs 67 professional musicians under the artistic leadership of Music Director and Conductor Grant Llewellyn, Resident Conductor William Henry Curry and Associate Conductor Sarah Hicks.

Based in downtown Raleigh’s spectacular Meymandi Concert Hall at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts and an outdoor summer venue at Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, N.C., the Symphony performs about 60 concerts annually in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Cary metropolitan area. It also holds regular concert series in Fayetteville, New Bern, Southern Pines and Wilmington and individual concerts in many other North Carolina communities throughout the year.

For tickets, program notes, podcasts, musician profiles, the Symphony blog and more, visit the North Carolina Symphony Web site at www.ncsymphony.org. Call North Carolina Symphony Audience Services at 919.733.2750 or toll free 877.627.6724.

Concert/Event Listing:
North Carolina Symphony
Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony

Miguel Harth-Bedoya, conductor
Augustin Hadelich, violin

Thur, Oct 13, 2011, 8pm
Lee Auditorium, Pinecrest High School, Southern Pines
Fri/Sat, Oct 14-15, 2011, 8pm
Meymandi Concert Hall, Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh

Program Listing:
North Carolina Symphony
Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony
Miguel Harth-Bedoya, conductor
October 13-15, 2011

Danza fantástica
Enrique Soro (1884-1954)

Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47
Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)
I. Allegro moderato
II. Adagio di molto
III. Allegro ma non tanto
Augustin Hadelich, violin

Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
I. Andante — Allegro con anima
II. Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza
III. Allegro moderato
IV. Finale: Andante maestoso — Allegro vivace

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sept. 2, 2011
Media Contact: Marla Carpenter
336-770-3337
carpem@uncsa.edu

UNCSA CHANCELLOR JOHN MAUCERI TO CONDUCT
THE NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AT THE KENNEDY CENTER
Event on Sept. 8 To Commemorate 10th Anniversary of Sept. 11

WINSTON-SALEM - Chancellor John Mauceri of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) will conduct the National Symphony Orchestra at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts during a private concert to commemorate, in words and music, the 10th anniversary of the tragedies that took place on Sept. 11, 2001. The concert is co-presented with The New Republic.

More than 2,000 people are expected to attend "9/11: 10 Years Later: An Evening of Remembrance and Reflection," which begins at 7:30 pm on Thursday, Sept. 8. The by-invitation-only audience at the Kennedy Center will include members of the 9/11 community and other special guests.

Christiane Amanpour, moderator of ABC News' This Week, will host the event. At press time, confirmed featured performers and soloists include Tony Award-nominated actor Raúl Esparza, mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, folk and country singer Emmylou Harris, and Grammy Award-winning jazz musician Wynton Marsalis. Commemorative remarks and readings will be delivered by speakers including former secretaries of state Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice and Madeleine Albright.

A world-renowned conductor, Maestro Mauceri will lead the National Symphony Orchestra as it performs the National Anthem, Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings," Stephen C. Foster's "Hard Times Come Again No More," "A City Called Heaven," and more.

Mauceri conducted the first public concerts in Los Angeles after Sept. 11, 2001. His three commemorative concerts at the Hollywood Bowl included the world premiere of a work by Jerry Goldsmith ("September 11, 2001"), composed for those concerts, which brought 54,000 people to the amphitheater. One year later, Mauceri led the first anniversary concert in New York City at the invitation of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in which orchestras in each of the city's five boroughs performed in the city parks. Mauceri conducted the Brooklyn Philharmonic that night, Sept. 11, 2002.

Both Maestro Mauceri and the School of the Arts have extensive connections with both Washington and the Kennedy Center. Mauceri served as Music Director of the Washington Opera, Music Director of Orchestras at the Kennedy Center, and Consultant for Music Theater at the Kennedy Center for more than a decade. Among the many UNCSA alumni who live and work in Washington are UNCSA School of Music alumnus Robert Oppelt, principal double bass for the National Symphony, and UNCSA Board of Trustees member Dan DeVany, vice president and FM general manager WETA, Washington.

John Mauceri is the Chancellor of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) and the Founding Director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. His distinguished and extraordinary career has taken him not only to over 25 of the world's greatest opera companies and more than 50 symphony orchestras, but also the musical stages of Broadway and Hollywood, as well as the most prestigious halls of academia.

Maestro Mauceri has served as music director of four opera companies: Washington (National), Scottish (Glasgow), the Teatro Regio (Turin, Italy), and Pittsburgh. He is the first American to have held the post of music director of an opera house in either Great Britain or Italy. He was the first music director of the American Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall after its founding director, Leopold Stokowski, with whom he studied. He was Consultant for Music Theater at Washington's Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for more than a decade, and, for 15 years, he served on the faculty of Yale University. For 18 years, Mauceri worked closely with Leonard Bernstein and conducted many of the composer's premieres at Bernstein's request.

On Broadway, he was co-producer of On Your Toes, and served as musical supervisor for Hal Prince's production of Candide as well as Andrew Lloyd Webber's Song and Dance. He also conducted the orchestra for the film version of Evita. Among his many awards and honors are a Tony, Grammy, Billboard, Olivier, and two Emmys. Last year, his recording of Erich Korngold's Between Two Worlds was selected by Gramophone magazine as one of the 250 Greatest Recordings of All Time. In April, Gramophone named two of his recordings with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra among the "10 great studio re-creations" of classic movie soundtracks.

Chancellor Mauceri holds the lifetime title of Founding Director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, which was created for him in 1991 by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and with whom he led over 300 concerts to a total audience of over 4 million people. He has written for and appeared on radio and television and has delivered keynote speeches and papers for major artistic and educational institutions, such as Harvard University, the American Academy in Berlin, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the American Musicological Society, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He recently published articles for Cambridge University Press and Gramophone magazine.

Mauceri has taken the lead in the preservation and performance of many genres of music and has supervised/conducted important premieres by composers as diverse as Debussy, Stockhausen, Korngold, Hindemith, Bernstein, Ives, Elfman, and Shore. He is a leading performer of music banned by the Third Reich and especially music of Hollywood's émigré composers, and can be seen and heard on many recent DVD releases of classic films.

Recent performances include an October 2010 debut in Spain at the Bilbao Opera as musical director of Susannah, with composer Carlisle Floyd present; and a November 2010 debut in Denmark with The Danish National Orchestra, conducting "Emigrés and Protégés - The Hollywood Diaspora." He has just completed a critically acclaimed run as musical director and artistic supervisor of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma!, an all-UNCSA production and restoration of the original 1943 Broadway production which has been videotaped for broadcast on UNC-TV on Oct. 12.

One of the world's preeminent experts on film music, Chancellor Mauceri appeared on June 29 at an event celebrating the life of film composer Bernard Herrmann, at WQXR in New York City, which can be heard online at WNYC's The Greene Space. In addition, a studio recording of George and Ira Gershwin's 1930 hit Broadway musical, Strike Up the Band, conducted by John Mauceri, has just been released (June 21) by PS Classics. Maestro Mauceri recently made his debut at the Aspen Music Festival conducting his edition of Dmitri Shostakovich's score to Hamlet, adapted from the 1964 Soviet film score for six actors and symphony orchestra.

In August 2011, Chancellor Mauceri returned to the Hollywood Bowl, where he led the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in Walt Disney's Fantasia. He returns to Los Angeles in October to conduct a benefit performance for the Motion Picture & Television Fund. The annual event, "A Fine Romance," features a breathtaking array of singers from film and stage musicals performing the songs that have tied New York and Hollywood together for decades. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Hugh Jackman will host.

And in January 2012, Maestro Mauceri travels to Denmark for a live, televised performance with the Royal Danish National Orchestra, honoring Queen Margrethe on her 40th anniversary as monarch.

The University of North Carolina School of the Arts is the first state-supported, residential school of its kind in the nation. Established as the North Carolina School of the Arts by the N.C. General Assembly in 1963, UNCSA opened in Winston-Salem ("The City of Arts and Innovation") in 1965 and became part of the University of North Carolina system in 1972. More than 1,100 students from high school through graduate school train for careers in the arts in five professional schools: Dance, Design and Production (including a Visual Arts Program), Drama, Filmmaking, and Music. UNCSA is the state's only public arts conservatory, dedicated entirely to the professional training of talented students in the performing, visual and moving image arts. For more information, visit www.uncsa.edu

UNC-TV to Feature Ruggero Piano's 4th Friday Concert Series on North Carolina Weekend

This month's 4th Friday concert will include a few extra mics and video cameras as UNC-TV's North Carolina Weekend crew will be featuring our 4th Friday Concert Series, as well as a few other other events that happen at Ruggero Piano. North Carolina Weekend spotlights great and unique weekend events across our state and we are excited that they have included us on their list. 4th Friday coordinator and emcee Eric Hale has put together an amazing group of performers for this very special edition of our 4th Friday series, most whom have already performed on 4th Friday concerts. They include Dr. John Pittman, piano; Dr. James Longmire, baritone with Sue Timmons accompanying; Michael Danchi, violin with Jonathan Levin, piano; Bill Stevens Jazz Trio; and pianist Mendel Nguyen. The program will be coming to you shortly, but mark your calendars now and plan to arrive early for the best seating.

For more information about NC Weekend, visit http://www.unctv.org/ncweekend/

About 4th Friday Concerts at Ruggero Piano

The 4th Friday Concert Series came about to offer a free monthly event where area musicians could share their talents and Raleigh music lovers could come with family and friends to enjoy a diverse selection of great music in a relaxed and intimate setting. For the past eight years, Eric Hale has scheduled the performers, emceed the concerts, and even performed most nights.

House accompanist Sue Timmons has also been with the series from the beginning graciously accompanying anyone who has needed her. There are rules of the hall including the primary one that the piano must be used in every piece, (with rare exceptions) and that performers be well rehearsed. There is no restriction on musical style. A reception follows each performance with a chance to chat with the musicians. The concerts are free and open to the public and take place nine months each year. We take off July, November and December due to holidays and vacations.

We look forward to a great turnout this month and to seeing many familiar, and some new faces. Thanks to all the performers and our enthusiastic audience!

Richard & Deborah Ruggero

Bosendorer Hall is located in Ruggero Piano at 4720-120 Hargrove Rd. Raleigh, NC 27616. Visit our website at http://www.ruggeropiano.com/ or call our office at 919-839-2040 for more information.

Other Events at Bosendorfer Hall

There are many other events that take place at Bosnedorfer Hall. By the way, Bosendorfer Hall was named for the historic Bosendorfer Hall in Vienna where renouned Bosendorfer artists and others have performed for many years. Our own intimate hall has seen many performances including student recitals, fundraisers for non-profit groups, master classes, special concerts like the recent Chopin project, world premiers, private events, and a montly jazz hour which is our most recent addition. Recording is also offered with a reduced rate for students who are applying for auditions to music schools or other related organizations.

About Ruggero Piano

Ruggero PIano is a three generation family business of piano technicians established in 1958. We offer a collection of fine new and used pianos, total restoration, comprehensive technical service and concert rental pianos for area performances. We have a no pressure educational approach to piano selection in an effort to help each customer make an informed selection that will provide many years of enjoyment. Our followup service insures the highest level of performance.

Ruggero Piano
4720-120 Hargrove Rd.
Raleigh, NC 27616
(919) 839-2040

NORTH CAROLINA SYMPHONY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jeannie Mellinger
919.789.5484
jmellinger@ncsymphony.org

North Carolina Symphony Launches 2011/12 Season with Free Concert in Raleigh Amphitheater

“Pops in the City,” Sept. 4

RALEIGH, N.C.—Maestro William Henry Curry and the North Carolina Symphony wave goodbye to the summer heat wave and kick off a bold new concert season with “Pops in the City,” a free concert in Raleigh Amphitheater, Sunday, Sept. 4, at 7:30 p.m.

Families, friends and music lovers can grab a seat in the heart of downtown Raleigh for a unique sampling of their state’s premier orchestra. The concert program features something for every taste, from classical masterworks including Beethoven’s Consecration of the House Overture and music from Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake to traditional, all-American marches by W.C. Handy and John Philip Sousa.

In between, the orchestra offers a few selections by contemporary leading lights John Williams and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Concertgoers will get a taste of adventure—as well as a live performance of one of Hollywood’s most popular movie themes—with the march from Raiders of the Lost Ark, before the orchestra, with special emphasis on the brass section, performs Williams’s powerful anthem for the 2006 Atlanta Olympics, Summon the Heroes. A medley of themes from Webber’s smash-hit musical Phantom of the Opera completes this unforgettable night out in downtown Raleigh.

The concert helps to launch the Symphony’s 2011/12 concert season, opening in Raleigh’s Meymandi Concert Hall with a powerhouse program headlined by Mozart’s Requiem on Thursday, Sept. 8. Other season highlights include the return of pianist Yuja Wang, one of the music world’s most celebrated young talents and a performer who causes listeners to “re-examine whatever assumptions you may have had about how well the piano can actually be played,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Symphony’s Duke Medicine Classical Series Raleigh and Pops seasons feature standout performances of Carmina Burana, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, three explorations of national music, celebrations of Leonard Bernstein and Billy Joel, a visit from Art Garfunkel and more. The orchestra will also welcome world-renowned piano soloists Pascal Rogé, Ignat Solzhenitsyn, Louis Lortie, Stephen Hough and Christina and Michelle Naughton to North Carolina as part of the five-concert “Piano Icons” series, presented in partnership with Fidelity Investments.

Subscriptions to the Symphony’s Classical and Pops series in Raleigh and concert series in Chapel Hill, Fayetteville, New Bern, Southern Pines and Wilmington are currently available.

Individual concert tickets for all 2011/12 Symphony performances go on sale Monday, August 8, at 10:00 a.m. For tickets, visit the Symphony online at www.ncsymphony.org or call Symphony Audience Services at 919.733.2750 or toll free 877.627.6724.

Raleigh Amphitheater is located downtown, across the street from the Raleigh Convention Center, at the corner of Lenoir and McDowell streets. Meymandi Concert Hall is located in the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts, 2 E. South St., in Raleigh.

About the North Carolina Symphony

Founded in 1932, the North Carolina Symphony performs over 175 concerts annually to adults and school children. The orchestra travels extensively throughout the state to venues in over 50 North Carolina counties. Under the artistic leadership of Music Director and Conductor Grant Llewellyn, Resident Conductor William Henry Curry and Associate Conductor Sarah Hicks, the orchestra employs 67 professional musicians.

Based in downtown Raleigh’s spectacular Meymandi Concert Hall at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts and an outdoor summer venue at Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, N.C., the Symphony performs about 60 concerts annually in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Cary metropolitan area. It also holds concerts in Fayetteville, New Bern, Southern Pines, Wilmington and many other North Carolina communities throughout the year.

For tickets, program notes, podcasts—or just to get to know your Symphony’s musicians—visit the North Carolina Symphony Web site at www.ncsymphony.org. Call North Carolina Symphony Audience Services at 919.733.2750 or toll free 877.627.6724.

Concert/Event Listing: North Carolina Symphony Pops in the City William Henry Curry, Resident Conductor Sept. 4, 2011, 7:30pm Raleigh Amphitheater

Program Listing:
North Carolina Symphony
Pops in the City
William Henry Curry, Resident Conductor

Radetzky March
Johann Strauss, Sr.

Overture to The Consecration of the House, Op. 124
Ludwig van Beethoven

Music from Swan Lake
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Savannah River Holiday
Ron Nelson

Raider’s March from Raiders of the Lost Ark
John Williams

Summon the Heroes
John Williams/arr. Custer

Music from Phantom of the Opera
Andrew Lloyd Webber, arr. Custer

St. Louis Blues March
W.C. Handy/arr. Holcombe

The Stars and Stripes Forever
John Phillip Sousa

Prepared by: Public Affairs Department
For more information:
Doug Grissom, Assistant Director
Raleigh Convention
Center, 996-8500

Symphony Invites Raleigh to Sept. 4
Free Concert in Downtown Amphitheater

Sandi Macdonald introduced herself today to Mayor Charles Meeker and the City Council by inviting them and all of Raleigh to a free concert to kick-off the North Carolina Symphony's 2011-12 concert season.

The new president and CEO of the state's premier orchestra issued the invitation at today's City Council meeting. The free Labor Day weekend treat will be held Sept. 4 at 7:30 p.m. in the Raleigh Amphitheater and Festival Site in Downtown Raleigh.

"Sample Your Symphony" will feature the works of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, John Williams and Andrew Lloyd Webber, as well as a few moving marches. William Henry Curry will be conducting.

"Sample Your Symphony" is one of four free concerts that the symphony is contracted with the City of Raleigh to provide each year. In turn, the City allocates $200,000 annually in funding to the symphony and provides the use of City-owned Meymandi Concert Hall rent free.

Philharmonic Association News

919-645-8434

TYJE Concert This Sunday

Jazz students have been enjoying a summer mini-session with TYJE Director, Gregg Gelb. You can hear them perform this Sunday, August 14, at 3:00 pm at Marsh Woodwinds Upstairs, 707 N. Person Street, Raleigh.

TYP First Rehearal September 6

Due to the Athens Drive High School Open House on September 13, TYP will begin one week earlier on September 6. There will be no TYP rehearsal on the 13th.

Giving Back

In the true spirit of “giving back” the Philharmonic Association is thrilled that next season’s Artistic Staff for our Triangle Youth Orchestra will be comprised of two former members of our youth orchestra program. Coming full circle, with enthusiasm to give service to the program that helped instill their lifelong love of great music, Jake Wenger will join fellow alumni Tim Kohring as a conductor for the Triangle Youth Orchestra. Both played in the Triangle Youth Philharmonic in high school, went to college to get undergraduate and graduate degrees in music, and have returned to the area as teachers and performers. The Philharmonic Association will be celebrating 25 years in 2013 and a number of our alumni are now local teachers who send their students to our program. Kind of like having grandchildren! Jake also teaches at Ravenscroft School and for the Community Music School of Raleigh, a non-profit offering low-cost music lessons to low-income students.

Last Day for Audition Cancellation

August 8 is the last day to cancel your audition without forfeiting the audition deposit. Send in your deposit to be scheduled for an audition, after submitting an online registration.

Important 2011-12 Dates

8/22–8/25 Orchestral Auditions
8/28 TYJE auditions
11/6 TYJE Concert
11/19 TYSO Concert
11/ 20 TYP Concert
11/22 TYS/TYO Concerts
12/ 7 Holiday Concert
1/14 TYJE Concert
3/17 & 18 TYP Ballet
4/15 TYSO Concert
4/22 TYJE Concert
4/29 TYP Concert
5/ 1 TYS/TYO Concerts

The Philharmonic Association is supported in part by the City of Raleigh, with funding recommended by the City of the Raleigh Arts Commission; United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County, with funds from the United Arts campaign as well as the North Carolina Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes a great nation deserves great art; the North Carolina Symphony; the Town of Cary; and the Lazy Daze Arts and Crafts Festival - a Cary based festival supporting local arts and non-profit organizations and activities.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: NMR 202-297-3833
info@newmusicraleigh.org

NMR Curator Invited to International Percussion Festival

August 2, 2011 (Raleigh, NC) – New Music Raleigh Curator, Shawn Galvin has been invited to perform at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention on November 10, 2011 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Mr. Galvin will perform the 2006 work entitled Volume which was written by the Brooklyn based composer Missy Mazzoli.

Shawn M. Galvin is known for his versatility as a percussionist, his commitment to creative performances, and his dedication to new music and improvisation. In a very young career, Shawn has garnered a richly varied performance background due to the ease he demonstrates within many genres of percussion performance.

Shawn is the Curator of New Music Raleigh, a collective of dynamic musicians dedicated to presenting outstanding performances of music by living composers. NMR creates concert experiences that challenge tradition, engage and inspire diverse audiences, and give voice to today’s most innovative and relevant modern music.

Shawn has performed with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under leading conductors including Lorin Maazel, Mariss Jansons, Chales Dutoit, Manfred Honneck, Leonard Slatkin, David Zinman, Rafeal Fruahbeck de Burgos, Gianandrea Noseda, and Stéphane Denève. Shawn has also performed with the Washington Bach Consort, the National Philharmonic, Washington Concert Opera, and the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Project. Currently, Shawn performs with the North Carolina Symphony, and the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra.

The Percussive Arts Society (PAS) is a music service organization promoting percussion education, research, performance and appreciation throughout the world.

The Percussive Arts Society is the world's largest percussion organization and is considered the central source for information and networking for percussionists and drummers of all ages. Established in 1961 as a non-profit, music service organization, our mission is to promote percussion education, research, performance and appreciation throughout the world.

Today, we are 8,500-members strong with 50 chapters located across the United States, and an additional 28 chapters outside the United States. PAS publishes two bi-monthly publications, Percussive Notes and Percussion News, and a website that contains publication archives, research databases, a conference center, museum tour and other features.

Each year PAS hosts the largest percussion convention in the world, the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC), featuring the top names in drumming and percussion.Now in its 35th year, PASIC features more than 115 concerts, clinics, master classes, labs, workshops, panels and presentations. The top percussion artists from all over the world present and perform in areas that include, drumset, marching, keyboard, symphonic, timpani, world, recreational, education, music technology, new music, and health and wellness. Attendance is over 6,000 annually.

New Music Raleigh: www.newmusicraleigh.org

Shawn Galvin: www.shawngalvin.com

PAS: www.pas.org

CELEBRATION CONCERT TO FEATURE THE MUSIC OF DAN FORREST, CARL NYGARD, JOHN RUTTER AND OTHERS AT EDENTON STREET UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

The Bel Canto Company, directed by Welborn Young, will present a special evening of choral music, featuring works by the above-named composers and others, at Edenton Street United Methodist Church in Raleigh on Friday, August 5 at 8:00 p.m. Hilary Apfelstadt and Carl Nygard will be guest conductors.

Admission is free, but seating is limited.

The Concert is presented in conjunction with Hinshaw Music's 37th annual Celebration choral workshop, to be held at the Sheraton Imperial in the Research Triangle on August 5 and 6, 2011.

For additional information about either the Concert or the Celebration workshop, please call Hinshaw Music at 919-933-1691 or visit hinshawmusic.com.

If you are a lover of opera and theatre you won’t want to miss this performance. Karen Dear announces her professional debut at Progress Energy Center’s Fletcher Opera Theatre on August 27th, 2011 @ 7pm. ‘Karen Dear & Friends, A Night in Opera & Sacred Classical’, accompanied by David Heid, led by Master of Ceremonies, Mr. Thomas Keefe will not disappoint. From vocals and acting to staging and lighting, Ms. Dear ‘s presentation will keep you engaged .

Karen has sung in productions with North Carolina Opera and in a recital performance with Triangle Opera Studios. She also performed as Sister Berthe in the 2009 production of NC Theatre’s ‘Sound of Music’ where acclaimed broadway director, Richard Stafford writes:

"I had the great pleasure of recently directing Karen in the Sound of Music at North Carolina Theatre. She was a wonderful, funny, tuneful Sister Berthe. She has a great deal of talent and the artistry to portray many different roles. I very much hope to work with her again in the future."

Richard Stafford

director/choreographer

Her vocal coach and accompanist, David Heid comes to North Carolina after a successful career in New York City. As a composer, arranger & conductor he made his Lincoln Center debut in Alice Tully Hall in 1994. His coaching clients include past Grammy and Tony Award winners. He is currently on the music staff at Duke University teaching piano and residing as staff accompanist. He has worked with many of the area’s leading organizations including Durham Choral Society, The Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, The Fletcher Foundation, Opera Company of North Carolina, Theater in the Park, Thompson Theater Summerfest and Long Leaf Opera. He was previously on staff of the renowned Juilliard School in New York City.

Karen has her Voice Performance degree from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, where she attended on scholarship for leadership and academic abilities and her sophomore year she won the Marie Grisard Music award of excellence. She studied with Dr. Tamara Fudge. Dr. Fudge obtained her master’s degree from Indiana University where she studied with American Baritone, Walter Cassel, then received her doctorate from Florida State University. Ms. Dear has a wide range of musical experience from roles in musical theatre, choral conducting, song writing, church soloist & flutist. Performing as Sarah Brown in ‘Guys and Dolls’ to singing her original composition ‘He’s Everything’ at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California to playing her flute in an orchestra for a performance at Meymandi Concert Hall. Not to mention as well writing a performance of original prose followed traditional Methodist hymn such as, ‘Precious Lord Take My Hand’, ‘In the Garden’, ‘Softly and Tenderly’, ‘Are Ye Able’ and traditional appalachian song, ‘Down to the River’, expressing an intimate spiritual journey where she performed at First United Methodist Church in Cary and then was invited to Glenaire Retirement community. She was accompanied on guitar by Francine Martin.

During the past 2 years Karen has sought vocal instruction from 4 local opera teachers. In seeking such a wide range of guidance she has been intent on discovering what it truly means to sing opera, striving to learn the most faithful interpretations of Verdi , Mozart and Floyd while holding true to the classical tradition & art of singing bel canto. As a spinto soprano, she will be performing semi-staged scenes as The Countess from Mozart’s ‘The Marriage of Figaro’, Desdemona from Verdi’s ‘Otello’, Amelia from Verdi’s ‘Un Ballo In Maschera’, and Susannah from Floyd’s ‘Susannah’. She is thrilled to be joined by Thomas Keefe and Emily Haas, both of whom are current members of North Carolina Opera and Ms. Sarah Ittoop, who is a current member of Triangle Opera Studios. They will all play a role in specified scenes. She has also welcomed Ms. Patricia Cook, singing in duet Mendelssohn’s ‘Thy Secret Place’. Ms. Cook has her music degree from University of North Carolina, Greensboro and is currently Assistant Music Director at First United Methodist Church in Cary, North Carolina. Other sacred songs to be performed include traditional spirituals such as ‘Give Me Jesus’, ‘Aint’a that Good

News’ as well as traditional hymn, ‘Be Thou My Vision’.

FOR BIO & TICKET INFORMATION : www.karendear.com
http://www.progressenergycenter.com

Raleigh Chamber Music Guild (RCMG) opens the 2011-12 concert season with the popular Mallarmé Chamber Players on Sunday, July 24, at 3:00 pm in the NC Museum of Art auditorium. We hope you will join us!

Fantasy and Ambiguity in Musical Form and Style, in conjunction with the Anthony Goicolea exhibition at the NC Museum of Art

• Igor Stravinsky - Suite Italienne for cello and piano
• Georg Phillipe Telemann - Fantasie No. 1 for solo viola
• Frédéric Chopin - Fantaisie in F Minor, Op. 49 for solo piano
• Arnold Schoenberg – Phantasy, Op. 47 for violin and piano
• Gustav Mahler - Piano Quartet in A Minor

1:45 pm: PRE-CONCERT DOCENT-LED TOUR of the Goicolea exhibition For reservations, contact Christine Molesky at (919) 664-6785 or christine.molesky@ncdcr.gov

SINGLE TICKETS: $10, $8 students and NCMA members

SEASON TICKETS (6 concerts): $50; $45 students and NCMA members

In advance: (919) 715-5923 or www.ncartmuseum.org; At the door The Sights & Sounds on Sundays chamber music concert series is presented by the Raleigh Chamber Music Guild and the NC Museum of Art. Nancy Lambert, Executive Director Raleigh Chamber Music Guild PO Box 2059, Raleigh NC 27602 (919) 821-2030; (919) 833-8937 fax; www.rcmg.org

William Henry Curry Spotlight in N&O
In case you missed it, our own Resident Conductor and Summerfest Artistic Director William Henry Curry was profiled in the Sunday edition of Raleigh's News & Observer. View the online N&O image gallery of William Henry Curry at this link!

Plenty More in Store
Don't forget there's plenty of great music to hear (and fun to have!) from the NCS this summer.

July 9, 2011
Pirates!
Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Cary
Hit the high seas with music from Pirates of the Caribbean, The Pirates of Penzance, Hook, Peter Pan, Captain Blood, The Flying Dutchman and more. But at this swashbuckling concert spectacular, the music's the beginning of the fun. We have treasure hunts, authentic artifacts, prizes for the best pirate costumes and more. THIS SATURDAY it's family fun at Summerfest.

July 14, 2011
The Music of Queen
Meymandi Concert Hall, Raleigh
"Bohemian Rhapsody," "We Are The Champions," "Another One Bites The Dust" and all the essential rarities. Your North Carolina Symphony presents the summer concert event sure to rock you. Enjoy this concert at our indoor concert home at Raleigh's Meymandi Concert Hall and avoid the summer heat!

July 16, 2011
Time for Three
Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Cary
They're back! Violins Zachary De Pue and Nicolas Kendall and bassist Ranaan Meyer wowed our audience with their blazing skills on New Year's Eve 2008. Now self-described "classically trained garage band" Time for Three returns to your Symphony for all the jazz, blues and bluegrass-infused musical mayhem you can handle.

BOSTON POPS ANNOUNCES FIRST-EVER SUMMER TOUR OF MINOR LEAGUE
BALLPARKS BEGINNING
AT THE DURHAM BULLS ATHLETIC PARK
TUESDAY, AUGUST 16TH

Raleigh based tour promoter ESI Concerts and the Durham Bulls have agreed to make GENESIS HOME the sole recipient of the charitable gift from this concert.

UNDER THE DIRECTION OF KEITH LOCKHART, WITH SPECIAL GUEST KENNY LOGGINS

THE BOSTON POPS WILL PERFORM GREAT MUSIC INSPIRED BY OUR NATIONAL PASTIME AND HOLLYWOOD HITS FROM THE ICONIC FILM SCORES OF OUR TIME

DURHAM, NC-- The Durham Bulls present The Boston Pops with special guest Kenny Loggins for one night only on Tuesday, August 16th at 7:30 p.m. at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. Genesis Home will be the sole recipient of the charitable gift for this concert.

Conductor Keith Lockhart and America's Orchestra, the famed Boston Pops, and iconic singer-songwriter Kenny Loggins will join Mr. Lockhart and the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra for a tour program that features music inspired by three of this country's favorite pastimes--baseball, movies, and rock 'n' roll. The common thread throughout the program, entitled the Hollywood Hits Tour, will be legendary film music themes, featuring music from one of the most memorable baseball films of our time, The Natural, a tribute to renowned film composer JohnWilliams, and Kenny Loggins singing "Footloose", from the ever-popular film of the same name.

Genesis Home will receive a portion of the proceeds from each ticket sold. Tickets are available online at www.durhambulls.com , by phone at 919.956.BULL or at The Durham Bulls Athletic Park Box Office.

For online sales use the ticket code GENESIS (in caps) or mention Genesis Home when you purchase tickets by phone or in person.

About Genesis Home:

Genesis Home is a nonprofit organization based in the heart of Durham, NC. Genesis Home works to end homelessness for families with children by providing housing and supportive services to foster independence.

For more information contact Mary McGuigan at Genesis Home 919.683.5878 x 22 or email development@genesishome.org

NORTH CAROLINA SYMPHONY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jeannie Mellinger, 919.789.5484, jmellinger@ncsymphony.org

Legislators Praise North Carolina Symphony’s Benefit Tour

Red Cross Joins Symphony to Raise Money for Tornado Victims

Concerts in Tarboro, New Bern, Chapel Hill, Cary and Jacksonville, May 31-June 5

RALEIGH, N.C.—Wednesday, May 24, 2011—North Carolina Symphony Interim President and CEO Don K. Davis appeared before the North Carolina General Assembly’s Joint Select Committee on Tornado Damage Response yesterday to outline the Symphony’s plans to aid victims of North Carolina’s April tornados and storms.

“We will be joined by volunteers from local chapters of the American Red Cross, whom we are very pleased to be working with,” he told the assembled members of the committee, chaired by Rep. Michael Stone of Sanford and Sen. Louis Pate of Mount Olive, in a meeting in the Legislative Office Building in Raleigh.

Red Cross personnel will be on-site at all five concerts in the Symphony’s upcoming statewide tour, May 31-June 5, said Davis. They will accept cash or check donations to Red Cross Disaster Relief at tables and through roaming volunteers in red vests.

The effort met with unanimous praise from the committee, with Rep. Stone noting that the group “really appreciates what the North Carolina Symphony is stepping up to do.” He included the orchestra in a growing list of non-profits and businesses across the state that have gone out of the way to support North Carolinians in need.

The sentiment was seconded by committee members including Sen. Bob Atwater of Chapel Hill and Rep. Phil R. Shepard of Jacksonville, both representing areas near where the Symphony will perform as part of the tour.

The concerts, conducted by Symphony Music Director Grant Llewellyn and titled “Around the World in Eighty Minutes,” take place at Town Common in Tarboro, Tuesday, May 31; Tryon Palace in New Bern, Thursday, June 2; Market Square at Southern Village in Chapel Hill, Friday, June 3; Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Regency Park in Cary, Saturday, June 4; and Riverwalk Crossing Park in Jacksonville, Sunday, June 5.

All five concerts begin at 7:30 p.m. All performances are free except for the Saturday, June 4, concert, part of the Rex Healthcare Summerfest Series in Cary.

“This is a wonderful thing that the Symphony is doing,” added committee co-chair Sen. Pate, who went on to encourage community service outlets in the state to promote this unique opportunity to raise funds for North Carolina disaster victims.

Davis stressed the point in his remarks. He thanked North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources Secretary Linda Carlisle for challenging the Symphony to create an opportunity for state residents to offer their support.

“We feel the special nature of the North Carolina Symphony, along with the wonderful support we receive throughout North Carolina, gives us a unique capability to help,” he said.

“Around the World in Eighty Minutes” features guest vocalist Rhiannon Giddens Laffan, lead singer of the Grammy Award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops, in a musical tour of the U.K., Austria, Italy, Russia, the Far East and the United States.

The Saturday, June 4, concert is part of the Rex Healthcare Summerfest Series in Cary. General admission lawn seating in Cary is $25 in advance, $30 at the door. Covered table seating is also available for $30 in advance, $35 at the door. Children 12 and under are admitted free to all Rex Healthcare Summerfest Series concerts.

About the North Carolina Symphony

Founded in 1932, the North Carolina Symphony performs over 175 concerts annually to adults and school children. The orchestra travels extensively throughout the state to venues in over 50 North Carolina counties. Under the artistic leadership of Music Director and Conductor Grant Llewellyn, Resident Conductor William Henry Curry and Associate Conductor Sarah Hicks, the orchestra employs 67 professional musicians.

Based in downtown Raleigh’s spectacular Meymandi Concert Hall at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts and an outdoor summer venue at Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, N.C., the Symphony performs about 60 concerts annually in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Cary metropolitan area. It also regularly holds concerts in Fayetteville, New Bern, Southern Pines, Wilmington and many other North Carolina communities.

For more, visit the North Carolina Symphony Web site at www.ncsymphony.org.

Concert/Event Listing: North Carolina Symphony “Around the World in Eighty Minutes”

Benefitting Tornado Victims

The Symphony is partnering with the American Red Cross to aid victims of the state’s April storms. Volunteers will be on-site to accept donations to Red Cross Disaster Relief. Join us in helping victims of disaster in North Carolina and around the country.

Grant Llewellyn, Music Director Rhiannon Giddens Laffan, vocalist

May 31, 2011, 7:30pm
Town Common, Tarboro

June 2, 2011, 7:30pm
Tryon Palace, New Bern

June 3, 2011, 7:30pm
Market Square at Southern Village, Chapel Hill

June 4, 2011, 7:30pm
Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Regency Park, Cary

June 5, 2011, 7:30pm
Riverwalk Crossing Park, Jacksonville

THE WCPE LOCAL ARTS SERIES in collaboration with Quail Ridge Books & Music

North Carolina Symphony: May 11, 2011

The Classical Station thanks The North Carolina Symphony for partnering with us in the Local Arts Series - a collaboration with the community-minded staff at Quail Ridge Books & Music. Our goal for this 2011 series is to bring music lovers to an intimate space where they can connect with, learn about, and build relationships with classical music performers. We were delighted by the great show of support for our own North Carolina Symphony this week! What’s more, Grant Llewellyn kindly took all of us into his world and shared a side of himself that was every bit as discerning and insightful as we had hoped.

Listening to Grant Llewellyn speak about Mahler’s 9th, you feel his connection is so real that it is nearly palpable. As Llewellyn waxes poetic about his dynamic relationship with Mahler’s music you understand why he chose to conduct it at this time in his life. Could it be as simple as the music choosing him? Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 resonates with Llewellyn in a vibrant and fresh way and yet his peace with the artistic space in which the work was created is something uniquely mature. With Mahler, Llewellyn seems to have arrived at a place of cultivation of empathy. We are so grateful to have given an audience to his reflections of a profound musical journey.

— Tara Lynn
WCPE Community & Arts Liaison

NORTH CAROLINA SYMPHONY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Jeannie Mellinger
919.789.5484
jmellinger@ncsymphony.org

Chamber Music the Way it Was Meant to be Heard: North Carolina Symphony’s Pub Series Concludes with Dinner at bu•ku, May 16

Couple Offers Taste of Cutting Edge Music with Works by Reich, Arvo Pärt and Joel Hoffman

RALEIGH, N.C.—Two musicians offer a unique sampling of 20th century music in the intimate setting of downtown Raleigh hotspot bu•ku, Monday, May 16, in the final concert in the North Carolina Symphony’s 2010/11 Pub Series. Symphony violinist Karen Strittmatter Galvin takes the stage with her husband, percussionist Shawn Galvin, for program from the cutting edge of composition. Dinner service at bu•ku begins at 6:00 p.m., with the concert starting at 8:00 p.m.

Shawn opens the concert by performing both parts of Nagoya Marimbas, a duet by pioneering American composer Steve Reich. “The second part will play via the computer,” he explains, “and I will play the other part live.”

He then aims to create “a backdrop with interesting sound for Karen to interact with” on Arvo Pärt’s evocative Fratres, originally written for violin and piano but adapted by the composer for multiple unlikely pairings. Karen is featured on solo violin in that piece before joining with Shawn for the concert’s closer, Joel Hoffman’s Three Oranges. Premiered in 2006, the duet, subtitled “a concise work in three movements for violin and marimba,” nicely rounds out the evening’s theme.

“There’s a lineage,” says Shawn. “Reich is the classic minimalist and so is Arvo Pärt, and the Hoffman music is a post-minimalist reaction.”

Combining musical selections rarely heard in any setting, played to perfection by professional musicians and combined with great atmosphere and even better food, the Symphony’s Pub Series has become a staple for many music lovers in the Triangle area. This edition highlights a menu inspired by food from the pushcarts of vendors in cities across the globe. Locally owned and operated, bu•ku strives to convey the immediate thrill a traveler feels when first encountering foods within a new culture.

An all-inclusive ticket price of $60 covers both dinner and the performance. Pub Series events frequently sell out; audience members are encouraged to purchase tickets now.

Bu•ku is located in downtown Raleigh at110 E. Davie St. For more, visit www.ncsymphony.org/pub.

About the North Carolina Symphony

Founded in 1932, the North Carolina Symphony performs over 175 concerts annually to adults and school children. The orchestra travels extensively throughout the state to communities in over 50 North Carolina counties. Under the artistic leadership of Music Director and Conductor Grant Llewellyn, Resident Conductor William Henry Curry and Associate Conductor Sarah Hicks, the orchestra employs 67 professional musicians.

Based in downtown Raleigh’s spectacular Meymandi Concert Hall at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts and an outdoor summer venue at Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, N.C., the Symphony performs about 60 concerts annually in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Cary metropolitan area. It also holds concerts in Fayetteville, New Bern, Southern Pines, Wilmington and many other North Carolina communities throughout the year.

For tickets, program notes, podcasts—or just to get to know your Symphony’s musicians—visit the North Carolina Symphony Web site at www.ncsymphony.org. Call North Carolina Symphony Audience Services at 919.733.2750 or toll free 877.627.6724. The State of North Carolina has issued your Symphony an $8 million challenge; learn more at www.ncsymphony.org/challenge.

Program Listing:

North Carolina Symphony
2010/11 Pub Series: bu•ku
May 16, 2011, 6pm

Nagoya Marimbas
Steve Reich (b. 1936)
Shawn Galvin, marimba

Fratres
Arvo Pärt (b. 1935)
Karen Strittmatter Galvin, violin

Three Oranges
Joel Hoffman (b. 1953)
Karen Strittmatter Galvin, violin
Shawn Galvin, marimba

NORTH CAROLINA SYMPHONY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jeannie Mellinger, 919.789.5484, jmellinger@ncsymphony.org

AUDITION ANNOUNCMENT:

North Carolina Symphony Holds Auditions for Second Young All-Stars Orchestra

Two High School Chamber Orchestras to be Formed in Partnership with Triangle Philharmonic Association

RALEIGH, N.C.—The North Carolina Symphony is now taking applications to audition for the 2010/11 Young All-Stars Orchestras. The exclusive chamber orchestras for advanced high school musicians are led by Music Director Grant Llewellyn in partnership with the Triangle’s Philharmonic Association. Accepted students will participate in a week of intensive rehearsals with Maestro Llewellyn and intimate sectional rehearsals with North Carolina Symphony musicians before a final public performance.

Two orchestras will be formed this concert season, the first offering a winter performance in Meymandi Concert Hall on Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011, at 2:00 p.m. The final program will feature Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Robert Ward’s Symphony No. 3 and close with Mozart’s “Haffner” Symphony, No. 35.

The spring orchestra will perform in Edenton Street United Methodist Church on Sunday, May 15, 2011, at 2:00 p.m. The church’s organist, Josh Dumbleton, will perform Poulenc’s Organ Concerto with the Young All-Stars. The spring program will also include the music of Haydn and Mozart.

“The rehearsal schedule and concert repertoire is intended to emulate that of the North Carolina Symphony,” says Education Manager Jessica Nalbone. “The musicians who are selected will be challenged to hold themselves to the same expectations as professionals. This is a truly unique opportunity for talented young instrumentalists to work at the highest level.”

Young All-Stars concert programs are carefully designed to offer young talent the opportunity to perform in new settings, debut compositions, work with distinguished composers or soloists and learn musical works outside of the standard youth orchestra repertoire. The program follows on the success of the 2009-10 Young All-Stars Orchestra, which performed twice last season.

Audition Information

North Carolina high school students between the ages of 14 and 19 are invited to participate in the auditions at Meymandi Concert Hall in downtown Raleigh’s Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts. Auditions for the winter orchestra will be held on Saturday, Oct. 9. Auditions for the spring orchestra will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 8, and Saturday, Feb. 12, 2011.

If accepted, a participation fee of $50 is required for each orchestra; scholarships may be available. The audition application, full schedule and a detailed description of requirements can be found at www.ncsymphony.org/education.

Questions about the Young All-Stars Orchestra can be directed to North Carolina Symphony Education Manager Jessica Nalbone at 919.789.5461 or jnalbone@ncsymphony.org. For more information on the North Carolina Symphony, visit www.ncsymphony.org.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:
Brian Van Norman
919.232.5008
brian@articulon.com

Award-Winning Clarinetist Opens Orchestra’s 28th Season
Alexander Fiterstein Performs at October 3 Concert

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (September 28, 2010) — The Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle (www.thecot.org) announces today that award-winning clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein will be the featured soloist during its 2010-2011 season-opening concert on October 3, 2010. The 3 p.m. concert will be held at the Carolina Theatre in Durham. This is Fiterstein’s fourth time performing with the orchestra.

Alexander Fiterstein “Alexander combines a warm tone with exceptional technical skill; he’s extremely soulful,” says Lorenzo Muti, COT artistic director and conductor. “I am delighted to have him back to perform with us once again.”

The concert, titled A Trove of Miniature Treasures, will consist of Fiterstein as soloist in performances of Gioacchino Rossini’s “Variations for Clarinet and Small Orchestra” and Richard Strauss’ “Duet-Concertino,” where he will be joined by Christopher Ulfers on Bassoon. In addition, the orchestra will perform Maurice Ravel’s “Pavane Pour Une Infante Defunte,” Arthur Honegger’s “Pastorale d’ete,” and Claude Debussy’s “Petite Suite.”

A native of Belarus, Fiterstein immigrated with his family to Israel at the age of two. He is the winner of the 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant Award, and is a first-prize winner of the Carl Nielson International Clarinet Competition and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions. He has performed with The Vienna Chamber Orchestra, The Israel Chamber Orchestra and the China National Symphony Orchestra, among others. Fiterstein was recently appointed as the artist/professor of clarinet at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and has been on the faculty of Kean University in New Jersey since 2005.

In addition to Fiterstein, the COT season includes featured performances by soprano Andrea Moore, pianist Andrew Tyson, violinist Timothy Fain and the Cary Concert Singers. A complete listing of concerts is available at www.thecot.org

Season tickets may be purchased at www.thecot.org or by calling 919.360.3382. All concerts are held at 3 p.m. at the Carolina Theatre of Durham, 309 West Morgan Street, Durham, N.C. 27701. To emphasize its commitment to engaging young people with great classical music, the orchestra provides free seating at every concert to students of all ages.

Muti and The Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle will be dedicating this concert in memory of Shirley Weiss who, with her husband Charles, established the Charles and Shirley Weiss Endowment for Young Performers. Funding from the endowment makes the COT’s soloist performances possible.

About the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle:

Since 1982, The Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle has been received with genuine respect and enthusiasm by music critics and the community. Today, it is considered one of the finest professional ensembles in North Carolina and the Southeast. With its elite corps of musicians, the orchestra continues to present a well-chosen and unusual repertoire that delights audiences and evokes high praise from critics. That standard of excellence has become the hallmark of the orchestra and has distinguished each succeeding season. The 2010-2011 series marks its 28th concert season. For more information, visit www.thecot.org or call 919.360.3382.

OPENING NIGHT OF THE MANNING CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES

Join pianist Milton Rubén Laufer and North Carolina Symphony musicians Mary Boone, Karen Galvin, Maria Evola, David Marschall, Peng Li, and Leonid Finkelshteyn, for opening night of the Manning Chamber music series in Kenan recital hall at Peace College.

Featured will be Spanish chamber music including works by Xavier Montsalvatge, Joaquin Turina, and Leonardo Balada.

The concert will be held Monday, Ocotober 6 in Kenan Recital Hall at 7:30 and admission is free.

Reception to follow in Main Parlor.

Please call 919-508-2290 for more information.

On Friday, October 1 the Duke Jazz Ensemble, directed by John Brown, will present "Celebrating the Music of Frank Foster," a concert focusing on the works of the Grammy Award-winning composer and saxophonist who has recently donated his compositions, arrangements, and personal papers to the Jazz Archive at Duke University Libraries. Alumni of the Duke Jazz Ensemble, including New York City saxophonist Todd Bashore, will return to perform Foster's arrangements of works by John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and others. Duke Jazz Ensemble director John Brown hopes that in addition to celebrating Foster's many achievements, the concert will call attention to the Jazz Archive, a significant historical resource available to scholars, performers and jazz enthusiasts.

Frank Foster was a member of the Count Basie Orchestra for many years, eventually leading the group from 1986-1995. In 2002, he was presented with a Jazz Master Award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

"Celebrating the Music of Frank Foster" will take place on Friday, Oct. 1 at 8 pm in Baldwin Auditorium on Duke's East Campus. Tickets are $10 general/$5 students and senior citizens. Call 919-684-4444 or visit www.tickets.duke.edu.

More information about the Jazz Archive may be found at this link.

Winston-Salem Symphony
For Immediate Release
August 10, 2010
For More Information:
Camille Jones
336.725.1035, x 214
cjones@wssymphony.org

METROPOLITAN OPERA STAR RENÉE FLEMING OPENS
THE WINSTON-SALEM SYMPHONY’S 64TH SEASON

Winston-Salem, NC – Internationally-acclaimed soprano and Metropolitan Opera star Renée Fleming will open the Winston-Salem Symphony’s 2010 – 2011 season with a gala concert of opera arias, art songs and musical theatre favorites. The concert will be presented at Reynolds Auditorium, 301 N. Hawthorne Road, on Monday, September 27, 2010, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for “The Beautiful Voice of Renée Fleming” are $30 - $125 and may be purchased at the Symphony Box Office (201 N. Broad Street), by calling 336.464.0145, or online at www.wssymphony.org.

Ms. Fleming’s program with the Winston-Salem Symphony will include selections from Gustav Mahler’s Rückert Lieder, Antonín Dvorák’s “Song to the Moon,” and arias from Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème, John Kander, and more. In addition to accompanying Ms. Fleming, the Winston-Salem Symphony will perform works by Richard Strauss, Puccini, Richard Wagner, and Morton Gould.

Often called “the people’s diva” for her down-to-earth, remarkably unaffected personality, Ms. Fleming has also been called “the Grace Kelly of Opera” for her beauty and style, and “La Regina del Metropolitan” (Opera Chic) a nod to her position as the undisputed reigning soprano in America today. With a voice described as “luscious cream and coloratura diamonds” (New York Post), she has charmed audiences around the globe in operatic performances, recital appearances, and on recordings ranging from opera to rock. Of a 2009 recital given by Ms. Fleming The Seattle Times noted, “If you weren't already in love with [Fleming] when you arrived…then you definitely left wrapped around her finger…”

The Winston-Salem Symphony’s 64th season includes Classics and Kicked-Back Classics, Plugged-In Pops, and Discovery Concerts for Kids series. In addition, the Ms. Fleming’s gala concert, the Symphony will also present Handel’s Messiah in December and the annual Side by Side concert with the Youth Symphony in March. For more information on the Winston-Salem Symphony and its 2010 – 2011 season, visit www.wssymphony.org.

Renee Fleming

One of the most beloved and celebrated musical ambassadors of our time, soprano Renée Fleming captivates audiences with her sumptuous voice, consummate artistry, and compelling stage presence. Known as “the people’s diva,” she continues to grace the world’s greatest opera stages and concert halls, now extending her reach to include other musical forms and media. Over the past few seasons, Ms. Fleming has been hosting a wide variety of television and radio broadcasts, including the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD series for movie theaters and television, and Live From Lincoln Center on PBS. As a musical statesman, Renée Fleming has been sought after on numerous distinguished occasions, from the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to performances in Beijing during the 2008 Olympic Games. On January 18, 2009, was featured on the televised We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial concert for President Obama. She has performed for the United States Supreme Court, HRH The Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace, and, in November 2009, celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Czech Republic’s “Velvet Revolution” at the invitation of Václav Havel. An additional distinction was bestowed in 2008, when breaking a precedent, Ms. Fleming became the first woman in the 125-year history of the Metropolitan Opera to solo headline an opening night gala.

Renée Fleming’s 2010-11 season at the Metropolitan Opera includes performances of Rossini’s Armida, and Strauss’s Capriccio. Her 2010-11 concert season begins with the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s Last Night of the Proms performance in September, followed by appearances with the Pittsburgh Symphony conducted by Manfred Honeck, the National Symphony under Christoph Eschenbach, and the Saint Louis Symphony with David Robertson. In October, Ms. Fleming travels to Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium with the Munich Philharmonic and conductor Christian Thielemann, and in November, she embarks on a Scandinavian tour, performing with the Danish National Symphony, Aarhus Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Norwegian Radio and Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestras. Further concert highlights include performances with the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony, as well as the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Berliner Philharmoniker. A dedicated and masterful recitalist, Ms. Fleming appears in Saint Paul, Minnesota and Kansas City, and in January, 2011, she embarks on a recital tour to Quebec, Washington, D.C., New York’s Carnegie Hall, Ann Arbor, Montreal and San Juan.

A three-time Grammy winner, Ms. Fleming won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Performance for Verismo (Decca/September 2009), a CD featuring a collection of rarely heard Italian arias. In June 2010, Decca and Mercury records released the CD Dark Hope, which features Ms. Fleming performing songs by artists such as Leonard Cohen, Peter Gabriel, Arcade Fire and Death Cab for Cutie, among others. Ms. Fleming’s most recent DVD is of Massenet’s Thaïs (Decca/January 2010) from the Metropolitan Opera. These releases follow the critically acclaimed 2008 CD of Strauss: Four Last Songs and a DVD of the complete Der Rosenkavalier, both featuring the Munich Philharmonic conducted by Christian Thielemann. In recent years, this 12-time Grammy nominated artist has recorded everything from Strauss’s complete Daphne to the jazz album Haunted Heart, to the movie soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Her recording honors range from the 2009 Echo Award for Strauss’s Four Last Songs to the Prix Maria Callas Orphée d’Or by the Académie du Disque Lyric for TDK’s DVD production of Capriccio.

Among Ms. Fleming’s numerous awards are Sweden’s Polar Prize (2008); the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur from the French government (2005); Honorary Membership in the Royal Academy of Music (2003); and a 2003 Honorary Doctorate from The Juilliard School, where she was also commencement speaker.

An advocate for literacy, Renée Fleming has been featured in promotional campaigns for the Association of American Publishers (Get Caught Reading), and the Magazine Publishers of America’s READ poster campaign for the American Library Association. She was honored by The New York Public Library as a “Library Lion.” Her book, The Inner Voice, was published by Viking Penguin in 2004, and released in paperback by Penguin the following year. An intimate account of her career and creative process, the book is also published in France by Fayard Editions, in the United Kingdom by Virgin Books, by Henschel Verlag in Germany, Shunjusha in Japan, and by Fantom Press in Russia.

Ms. Fleming is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Hall Corporation, the Board of Sing for Hope, and the Advisory Board of the White Nights Foundation of America. Additional information about Ms. Fleming can be found at her website: www.reneefleming.com. (Management: IMG Artists; Public Relations: M.L. FALCONE, Public Relations)

NORTH CAROLINA SYMPHONY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jeannie Mellinger
919.789.5484
jmellinger@ncsymphony.org

Cirque de la Symphonie Returns for a High-Flying Indoor Performance with the North Carolina Symphony

RALEIGH, N.C.—Back by popular demand, Cirque de la Symphonie joins the North Carolina Symphony for a high-flying musical spectacle for the whole family, Oct. 1-3. The aerialists, acrobats, trapeze artists, contortionists, dancers, jugglers and strongmen who make up the group, which last performed with the Symphony before a sold-out crowd during Summerfest 2009, bring their dynamic show indoors for a concert showcasing some of the finest music ever written.

Resident Conductor William Henry Curry leads this gravity-defying Pops performance at Meymandi Concert Hall in downtown Raleigh’s Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Friday and Saturday, Oct. 1-2, at 8:00 p.m. A special matinee performance takes place Sunday, Oct. 3, at 3:00 p.m.

Formed to bring the magic of cirque to the music hall, Cirque de la Symphonie’s exciting performances are specifically choreographed for every new space to classical masterpieces and popular contemporary music in collaboration with the conductor. October’s concerts feature award-winning aerialist Alexander Streltsov, seven-time acrobatic gymnastics national champion Christine Van Loo, Cirque du Soleil veteran Shana Lord and the captivating “Duo Design” balancing act by Jaroslaw Marciniak and Dariusz Wronski, among many other artists.

Symphony regulars won’t be wanting for great music, as the Symphony provides a perfect counterpoint to all the visual thrills with works ranging from the passionate Danse Bohème from Bizet’s Carmen to Saint-Saëns’s spooky Danse macabre and Wagner’s thunderous Ride of the Valkyries. Younger members of the audience will also enjoy familiar melodies such as the Waltz from Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty (reinvented as the song “Once Upon a Dream” for Disney’s animated version of the fairy tale) or a selection from John Williams’s score to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Regular tickets to this Fidelity Investments Pops Series performance featuring Cirque de la Symphonie range from $40 to $60, with a senior rate of $30. Meymandi Concert Hall is located in the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts, 2 E. South St., in Raleigh.

For tickets and more information, visit the North Carolina Symphony Web site at www.ncsymphony.org or call 919.733.2750. See photos and a video by WUNC-TV on Cirque de la Symphonie’s 2009 performance in the Symphony’s online Media Center, www.ncsymphony.org/media/.

Concert/Event Listing: North Carolina Symphony Cirque de la Symphonie William Henry Curry, Resident Conductor October 1-2, 2010, 8pm October 3, 2010, 3pm Meymandi Concert Hall, Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh

Program Listing:
North Carolina Symphony
Cirque de la Symphonie
William Henry Curry, Resident Conductor
October 1-3, 2010

• Prélude et les chasseresses from Sylvia
  Léo Delibes
• Harry's Wondrous World from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
  John Williams
• Danse Bohème from Carmen
  Georges Bizet/arr. Hoffman
• Danse cosaque from La boutique fantasque
  Ottorino Respighi
• Waltz from Sleeping Beauty
  Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
• España
  Emmanuel Chabrier
• Bacchanale from Samson et Delilah
  Camille Saint-Saëns
• Danse des cygnes from Swan Lake, Op. 20
  Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
• Cortège de Bacchus from Sylvia
  Léo Delibes
• Danse macabre, Op. 40
  Camille Saint-Saëns
• Polonaise from Eugene Onegin
  Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
• Can-can from La boutique fantasque
  Ottorino Respighi
• The Ride of the Valkyries from Die Walküre
  Richard Wagner/ arr. Hutschenruyter
• Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565
  Johann Sebastian Bach/arr. Stokowski

NORTH CAROLINA SYMPHONY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jeannie Mellinger
919.789.5484
jmellinger@ncsymphony.org

North Carolina Symphony Music Director Grant Llewellyn Signs Contract Extension

RALEIGH, N.C.—Grant Llewellyn and the North Carolina Symphony signed an agreement that will extend Llewellyn’s contract through 2015, the orchestra announced today.

“Over the last six years, Grant Llewellyn has captured the hearts and minds of audiences throughout the state of North Carolina,” says Symphony Board Chair William Cavanaugh III. “We are indeed fortunate to have Grant continue to provide his dynamic artistic direction for our great orchestra.”

Llewellyn is enthusiastic as well. “I have come to realize that this is truly a unique orchestra in a very special place. The North Carolina Symphony entertains and serves the people of this state as no other orchestra in the country, and I am proud and honored to be able to lead these fine musicians on our statewide mission into the future.”

Orchestra Committee Chair and Principal Trombone John Ilika adds, “The musicians of the North Carolina Symphony are thrilled that Grant will continue as music director. This continued artistic partnership is sure to create a lasting legacy of great music for the people of North Carolina.”

Llewellyn is renowned for his exceptional charisma, energy and brilliant leadership on the podium. During his six years as North Carolina Symphony Music Director, both he and the orchestra have garnered fresh praise from audiences and critics alike. “He shows wonderful rapport with both the audience and the orchestra,” says one concertgoer. “He is obviously a conductor of great finesse and subtlety, and it is a joy to watch him and listen to an ensemble under his baton.”

Critics point to his “transcendent performances,” his “graceful, expressive direction,” his energy and sparkle” and his “international glamour.” Roy Dicks of the Raleigh News and Observer said, “…although the orchestra had covered itself with glory under Llewellyn’s guidance...with dedication and insight [he] is proving a wise tutor, whom audiences should trust for entertainment and enlightenment.”

Under his direction, the North Carolina Symphony has released three compact discs. The first recording was published in 2005 at the request of North Carolina Symphony audience members who contributed funds to cover expenses. The two most recent recordings were published to international acclaim in 2008 and 2009 on the Scandinavian classical music label BIS.

Llewellyn became the Symphony’s fifth music director on July 1, 2004, signing a four-year contract. His appointment followed a 32-month international search which invited audience comment and sought input from many different constituencies. In 2006, the contract was extended to 2012.

KidZNotes is launching in September! Please join us for two important events:

September 1: Benefit concert/presentation for KidZNotes and El Sistema in NC!
Wednesday, September 1, 7:30
Quail Ridge Books and Music
3522 Wade Ave, Raleigh NC

Starting this fall in Durham, NC, KidZNotes is providing free instruments and instruction in classical music and orchestras for children in need. KidZNotes is modeled on El Sistema, a program that started in Venezuela 35 years ago for children and families in poverty. Executive Director Katie Wyatt will share stories, photos and videos from her time in Venezuela as an Abreu Fellow, and describe how El Sistema is taking root in NC through KidZNotes. She'll be joined in performance by KidZNotes' community partners Ari Picker of Lost in the Trees, Bonnie Thron, Principal Cello of the North Carolina Symphony, and Scott Laird from the North Carolina School for Science and Math.

Quail Ridge will donate 20% of non-discounted sales in store and online that day to KidZNotes. Please mention KidZNotes when you make your purchase, or enter "kidznotes" into the Comments field when making your purchases online.

September 18: Launch at our nucleo site, the Holton Career and Resource Center

Saturday, September 18, 1:00 pm
Holton Career and Resource Center
401 North Driver St, Durham NC

Please join us for our launch party! Our first class of KidZNotes children will be presented with their VIOLINS, a gift from Duke University. Meet our kids, parents, teachers, board members and community partners, including:

• The East Durham Children's Initiative
• The Durham Symphony
• The Durham Arts Council
• Mallarme Chamber Players
• Duke University
• Opus 1 Inc.
• Durham Parks and Recreation
• Durham Public Schools
• High Strung Strings
• The Durham Chamber of Commerce
• Bull City Forward
• The Duke String School

Celebrate Katie's birthday with her by supporting KidZNotes! Katie will be 31 on August 31st, and would be honored by your gift of $31, or whatever you would like to give. Click here to send Katie a gift and make her day. 4 Hartford Court Durham, NC 27707 US

Cellist Lynn Harrell and Violinist Helen Nightengale Join Save the Children as Artist Ambassadors

WESTPORT, Conn. (August 16, 2010) – Save the Children announced today that world-renowned cellist Lynn Harrell and his wife, violinist Helen Nightengale, have joined the charity's Artist Ambassador program in support of the agency's Healing and Education through Art (HEART) program. The couple joined Save the Children's Artist Ambassador program to help raise money for the innovative program targeting children living in countries and communities affected by conflict, violence, HIV/AIDS and extreme poverty. HEART uses the arts to promote children's development and well-being by providing them with a creative means of expression. As part of their commitment to supporting the cause, the couple has recruited some of the most celebrated names in classical and contemporary music for a CD, They are Why We Sing, to be released later this year. They have formed HEARTbeats, a 501 (c) charity to produce the album. The majority of the proceeds from the CD, after production costs are covered, will go to Save the Children’s HEART program.

Consisting primarily of original songs about peace written specifically for the HEARTbeats project, They Are Why We Sing will feature legendary names in music including Harrell, Christine Brewer, Rod Gilfry, Jessye Norman, and John Williams, as well as up-and-coming artists Neil Comess-Daniels and Deborah Pardes. The songwriting team of Tom Rizzo and Bonnie MacBird contributed the title track. Other artists contributing to the project will be named later. Save the Children’s HEART program gives children the chance to express and work through their feelings and experiences so they are better able to cope and to recover. HEART also encourages young children to explore and play, and thus learn and develop to their full potential which are essential for their future learning and growth. The project was initially piloted in El Salvador, Mozambique and the West Bank over the past few years. Through corporate, foundation and private support, Save the Children will continue to support the work in the pilot countries and will expand HEART to Haiti, Malawi and Nepal in 2010. A new $5.9 million HEART endowment will allow Save the Children to expand the program globally in the future.

Save the Children is the leading, independent organization that creates lasting change for children in need in the United States and around the world. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. The HEARTbeats Foundation is a 501(c) charity founded in June 2010 by renowned cellist Lynn Harrell and his wife, violinist Helen Nightengale. Based in Los Angeles, the HEARTbeats Foundation strives to help children in need harness the power of music to better cope with, and recover from, the extreme challenges of poverty and conflict, in hope of creating a more peaceful, sustainable world for generations to come.

TRIANGLE PERFORMING ARTS COMPANY ANNOUNCES AUDITIONS FOR 2010 HOLIDAY SPECTACULAR

DURHAM, NC August 15, 2010 – On September 11 and 12, the Triangle Performing Arts Company (TPAC) will be holding auditions for their second annual Holiday Spectacular. The performance will consist of two acts, the first being the much-loved second act of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, and the second, a Broadway extravaganza echoing the story line of The Nutcracker in a modern day setting.

Dancers, actors and singers from ages six to adult are encouraged to audition. Performers can audition for only the Nutcracker, or Broadway Holiday, or they can audition for both.

Auditions for The Nutcracker, Act II will be held on Saturday, September 11, from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm. About 30 performers, ages six through adult will be cast for this act. The Broadway Holiday audition will be September 12 from 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm with about 30 performers, ages eight through adult, cast. Performers are asked to arrive 30 minutes prior to the audition to register. Auditions will be held at the Barriskill Dance Studio on Shannon Road in Durham. For complete details of rehearsal schedules and cost, visit www.barriskilldance.com or call 919-489-5100 The Holiday Spectacular will consist of three performances on December 17 through 19 at Duke’s Reynolds Industries Theater. Local studio owner and Broadway veteran, Michael Barriskill, is thrilled to be directing and producing the Holiday Spectacular. “The show is so much more than the final performance,” says Barriskill, “It is more about the bond the performers forge, the excitement of the process and the commitment of teamwork to produce an excellent final product.”

The newly formed Triangle Performing Arts Company (TPAC) is a non-profit organization committed to providing professional training and performance opportunities to passionate youth of all ages. For more information, please call (919) 489-5100.

EASTERN MUSIC FESTIVAL AWARDED $73,490 FROM the N.C. ARTS COUNCIL

Greensboro, NC - August 16, 2010 - The Eastern Music Festival in Guilford County was awarded $71,250 from the N.C. Arts Council to help support the 2010 festival, during which the Eastern Music Festival celebrated its 49th season.

Stephanie Cordick, executive director of the Eastern Music Festival, is appreciative of the N.C. Arts Council and its generous support. "Eastern Music Festival & School (EMF) is grateful to the North Carolina Arts Council whose generous support nourishes countless arts organizations throughout our state every year. This most recent investment represents a strong commitment to the arts by our state leaders who recognize that the work of cultural organizations, like EMF, is vital to the state's economy and recovery. EMF will use this significant funding wisely to bring great music to the diverse populations of Guilford County and beyond."

During the 2010 Festival Season, EMF hosted 100 plus concerts and music-related events during June 26 - July 31; roughly 60,000 citizens from the Piedmont and across the country attended at least one event during the festival. Additionally, EMF had 162 young artists from around the world, ages 14 to 22, attend the five-week program where they were able to study with some of the best classical musicians in the world.

The 49th Season brought many of the highest caliber of musical artists to Greensboro, including EMF Music Director Gerard Schwarz, whose credits include over 265 acclaimed recordings, thirteen Grammy nominations (most recently in 2009) and two Emmy awards. Guests artists included Barry Douglas, piano, Lynn Harrell, cello, Gil Shaham, violin, William Wolfram, piano, and Tianwa Yang, violin. Along with the Saturday evening Festival Orchestra Series, Eastern Music Festival offered two chamber series, the Friends and Great Performers series, the Young Artists Series featuring performances by the EMF young artist students, and the popular EMFfringe series.

"The support of our grants program by the General Assembly during these economically challenging times demonstrates the role the arts play in our economy and our quality of life," said Mary B. Regan, executive director of the N.C. Arts Council. "Nonprofit arts organizations employ workers, stimulate commerce, generate tax revenues and help communities retain their vibrancy."

More than 13.6 million people participated in N.C. Arts Council-funded projects last year in schools, senior centers, museums, concert halls and community centers. Nearly 4.3 million of these were children and youth.

The N.C. Arts Council awards grant money each year to provide diverse arts experiences for citizens in all 100 counties of North Carolina. In fiscal year 2010-11, the Arts Council is expected to distribute $7.4 million in state and federal grant funds to arts organizations, schools and other nonprofit organizations that sponsor arts programs.

The N.C. Arts Council is a division of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, the state agency with the mission to enrich lives and communities and the vision to harness the state's cultural resources to build North Carolina's social, cultural and economic future. Information on Cultural Resources is available at www.ncculture.com.

About Eastern Music Festival

The Eastern Music Festival's mission is to promote musical enrichment, excellence, professional collaboration, innovation, and diversity through a nationally-recognized teaching program, music festival, concerts, and other programs which will enhance the quality of life, health, and vitality of our region.

The Eastern Music Festival and School, founded in 1961 in Greensboro, North Carolina by Sheldon Morgenstern, is an internationally-renowned classical music festival and institute for young musicians that runs for five weeks each summer. The institute accepts students ages 14 through 22 from around the country and the world. The EMF faculty consists of world-class performing artists selected from top orchestras and music schools nationally and internationally. Gerard Schwarz serves as the music director and principal conductor for the Festival, and also serves as music director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. The upcoming 2011 season will mark Eastern Music Festival's 50th anniversary in the Piedmont.

For more information about EMF or its programs, please visit www.EasternMusicFestival.org, or call toll-free: 1-877-833-6753.

[PLEASE CONTACT CARRIE MILLER, DIRECTOR OF MARKETING, FOR ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS AND INFORMATION.]

EMF is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

All contributions are tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law.

Burning Coal Announces its 2010/2011 Season

Burning Coal is excited to announce details of its 2010/2011 season of plays in Raleigh, NC. All performances will be held at Burning Coal Theatre at the Murphey School (NOTE VENUE NAME CHANGE), 224 Polk Street, Raleigh, NC. All tickets are $20 or $15 for students, seniors and active military. Further details can be obtained by calling 919-834-4001 or visiting our website at www.burningcoal.org.

Burning Coal's 2010/2011 season will include: To Kill a Mockingbird by Christopher Sergel from the novel by Harper Lee directed by Randolph Curtis Rand (September 9 - 26, 2010),, St. Nicholas by Conor McPherson, directed by Randolph Curtis Rand (November 4 - 21, 2010), Crowns by Regina Taylor, directed by Rebecca Holderness (December 2 - 19, 2010), Blue by Kelly Doyle, directed by Mark Sutch (January 13 - 30, 2011) and The Shape of the Table by David Edgar, directed by Jerome Davis (April 7 - 24, 2011).

ABOUT TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.

2010 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Harper Lee's essential Southern novel about a small town lawyer, Atticus Finch, and his decision to stand and fight bigotry and injustice. It is told from the viewpoint of the widower Atticus' young daughter, Scout. Mr. Sergel's stage adaptation is the only authorized stage adaptation of Ms. Lee's novel. As with a previous American novel, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (who many credit with leading to the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation), Miss Lee's novel is widely regarded as a significant inspiration for the civil rights movement that took root during the 1960s.

Randolph Curtis Rand will direct a cast of nine, including Los Angeles based actor Liz Beckham, who has appeared at Burning Coal in Tartuffe and The Taming of the Shrew, and New York City-based actor Roger Rathburn, who has appeared on Broadway and at regional theatres across the country, including the Broadway revival of No No, Nanette directed by Busby Berkley. Mr. Rand has directed for Burning Coal The Historie of King Henrie the Fourth and Uncle Tom's Cabin and written an adaptation of Ibsen's A Doll House. He has acted at Burning Coal in Love's Labours Lost, Pentecost, and recently in The Seafarer. Mr. Rand founded The Drama Dept. in New York City with Douglas Carter Beane. He is currently a member of the performance collective Elevator Repair Service.

ABOUT ST. NICHOLAS.

Conor McPherson's haunting and funny one-man show deals with a besotted Dublin theatre critic who falls in love with a young actress and follows her to London, and straight into a coven of vampires. Mr. McPherson is also the author of The Weir and The Seafarer, both presented by Burning Coal in past seasons.

Randolph Curtis Rand (see above) will direct. The production will feature Burning Coal's Artistic Director, Jerome Davis, as the Critic. Davis has acted at New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, People's Light and Theatre Company, Trinity Repertory Company, Phoenix Theatre, W.H.A.T., and others. In New York, he studied with Julie Bovasso, Nikos Psacharapolous and, for seven years, Uta Hagen. He has worked or studied with Ellen Burstyn, Horton Foote, Ben Gazzarra, Richard Jenkins, Adrian Hall, David Wheeler, Hope Davis, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt and Steve Harris.

ABOUT CROWNS

Regina Taylor's rollicking gospel musical is based loosely on a book of photography: Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats by Michael Cunningham and Craig Marberry. It details the tribulations of a young African American girl from New York City whose family send her to live with her grandmother in South Carolina after an act of violence shatters their family.

Crowns will be directed by Rebecca Holderness, who teaches theatre at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. Ms. Holderness has directed for Burning Coal Love's Labours Lost, A Doll House, Travesties, James Joyce's 'the Dead', Twelfth Night and Romeo & Juliet. In New York City, her production of The Life of Spiders at HERE was hailed by the New York Times as "beautiful". The production will star the original cast from the production Burning Coal mounted in 2008, including Yolanda Rabun, Emelia Cowans and Naima Adedapo. The production is a collaboration between Burning Coal Theatre Company and the Temple Theatre in Sanford, NC, where the production will play in February, 2011.

ABOUT BLUE

Raleigh native Kelly Doyle's play Blue will receive its world premiere at Burning Coal Theatre Company. It is about a charismatic, morally bankrupt blue worm, William, and the women who love him.

Kelly Doyle holds an MFA in playwriting from Brown University in Providence, RI. Her undergraduate degree is from CalArts. Her plays Hole and Dirt each received readings at Burning Coal's New Works program in past seasons.

The production will be directed by Davidson College associate professor of theatre, Mark Sutch, who directed last season's Hair. Mr. Sutch is a graduate of the Trinity Repertory Conservatory in Providence, Rhode Island. Jenn Suchanec, who has appeared at Burning Coal in Pentecost, Inherit the Wind, Twelfth Night, The Prisoner's Dilemma and Much Ado About Nothing, will star.

ABOUT THE SHAPE OF THE TABLE

David Edgar's Eastern Europe trilogy concludes at Burning Coal with his 1990 play, The Shape of the Table, in its American Premiere. The play examines the fall of the Iron Curtain, as observed from inside the politburo of an unnamed Soviet satellite country. Edgar's trilogy includes The Prisoner's Dilemma, about negotiations between cultures and Pentecost, about the spread of multiple cultures throughout Europe immediately following the collapse of communism there.

Artistic Director Jerome Davis will helm the production. For Burning Coal, Davis has directed Rat in the Skull, Pentecost, Winding the Ball, The Steward of Christendom, Company, Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, Inherit the Wind, 1960, The Seafarer and others. The play will feature Rob Jenkins, John Allore, Tom McLeister, James Anderson and Tamara Farias Kraus. Scenery and lighting will be provided by Rob Andrusko and Matthew Adelson, respectively.

For further information, please contact Burning Coal's managing director, Simmie Kastner, at 919.834.4001 or visit our website at www.burningcoal.org.

Burning Coal Theatre Company is Raleigh's small, professional theatre. Burning Coal is an incorporated, non-profit [501 (c) (3)] organization. Burning Coal's mission is to produce literate, visceral, affecting theatre that is experienced, not simply seen. Burning Coal produces explosive reexaminations of overlooked classic and modern plays, as well as new plays, whose themes and issues are of immediate concern to our audience, using the best local, national and international artists available. We work toward a theatre of high-energy performances and minimalist production values. The emphasis is on literate works that are felt and experienced viscerally, unlike more traditional linear plays, at which audiences are most often asked to observe without participating. Race and gender non-specific casting is an integral component of our perspective, as well as an international viewpoint.

CALL FOR MUSICIANS:
North Carolina Symphony Launches Triangle Talent Search;
Winners to Perform with the Symphony on New Year’s Eve

RALEIGH, N.C.—Triangle, have you got talent? The North Carolina Symphony is holding its first Triangle Talent Search in Raleigh on Saturday, Sept. 25, with the winner or winners earning a chance to perform live with the Symphony as a featured soloist on New Year’s Eve.

“People who never thought they could perform with the North Carolina Symphony now have that opportunity,” says Scott Freck, North Carolina Symphony Vice President for Artistic Operations and General Manager and one of the judges of the competition.

The Search is open to vocalists and instrumentalists either as individuals or in performing groups, from any genre of music, be it classical, rock, gospel, bluegrass, jazz, Broadway, opera, hip hop or something else.

“The trick is that it has to work with the Symphony somehow,” says Freck, noting that the Symphony has collaborated with artists as wide-ranging as Yo-Yo Ma and Ben Folds. It recently held a successful benefit featuring jazz great Branford Marsalis onstage with headliners from throughout the bluegrass, gospel, folk, classical and jazz worlds.

“The more the better,” he says, “and we’ll make a great show out of it.”

Winners will be invited to perform live with the North Carolina Symphony during its New Year’s Eve Celebration in downtown Raleigh’s Meymandi Concert Hall, under the baton of Associate Conductor Sarah Hicks. The Triangle Talent Search will be judged by Freck, Hicks and Raleigh News and Observer music critic David Menconi.

“It’s all about finding someone who is compelling,” says Freck, “who has a distinct talent or voice and can connect with an audience. Someone who creates a spark.”

Reservations are required to audition. Media support is provided by the Raleigh News and Observer.

Complete information on the auditions and the North Carolina Symphony can be found at www.ncsymphony.org/talentsearch.

The Cross Currents Chamber Music and Arts Festival

We are proud to present the 2010 Cross Currents Chamber Music Arts Festival that is once again anchored by the Brussels Chamber Orchestra and continues to be dedicated to bringing a wide range of exciting and creative collaborations with international and local musicians. Full details for all five concerts, the not to be missed Gala hosted by North Hills at the beautiful new CAPTRUST Building, the two CD signings at Quail Ridge, two open rehearsals, and master class presented by Gavriel Lipkind are on the website as well as ticketing information. We are using etix this year for your convenience. We suggest you buy tickets early: seating is limited. This past March we had a sellout crowd in Cary for the collaborative performance of the Brahms Sextets by members of the Brussels Chamber Orchestra and the NC Symphony.

Tell your friends, make reservations, and prepare to fall in love with chamber music once again.

For more information: www.crosscurrentsfestival.com.

Carrie Knowles, Festival DirectorThis year's festival will bring the Brussels Chamber Orchestra back to Raleigh along with Gavriel Lipkind, the Pierre Anckaert Jazz Quintet from Europe and the Will Scruggs Jazz Fellowship from Atlanta, and a performance by the Mallarme Chamber Players.

* Five concerts, a not to be missed Gala, two open rehearsals, a master class, two special CD signings at Quail Ridge Books and one big beautiful Music Day at Marbles.

* Five concerts, a not to be missed Gala, two open rehearsals, a master class, two special CD signings at Quail Ridge Books and one big beautiful Music Day at Marbles.

Friends of the Brussels Chamber Orchestra
410 Morson Street, Raleigh, NC 27601
919-821-3478
cjknowles@earthlink.net
http://www.crosscurrentsfestival.com

Greensboro, NC - The 49th season of the critically-acclaimed Eastern Music Festival & School will open June 26 and run through July 31, 2010. During the five-week run, renowned Music Director Gerard Schwarz has planned more than 100 concerts and music-related events with many taking place on the campus of Guilford College in Greensboro, NC. Other venues will include UNCG School of Music, Triad Stage, First Presbyterian Church, Temple Emanuel, Carolina Theatre, Elon University (Elon, NC), High Point University (High Point, NC), Farthing Auditorium (Boone, NC), and the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts (Washington, DC).

The Festival's forty-ninth season will bring the highest caliber of musical artists to Greensboro, beginning with Schwarz himself, whose credits include over 265 acclaimed recordings, thirteen Grammy nominations (most recently in 2009), two Emmy awards, Gerard Schwarz Day (Sept. 2009) in Seattle, WA, and the key to the City of Greensboro (July 2009).

The cornerstone of the EMF season is the popular Saturday FestivalOrchestra series with the Eastern Festival Orchestra, named one of the best on the East Coast. The series opens on July 3 in a performance featuring Maestro Schwarz with cellist Lynn Harrell playing Shostakovich's aggressive yet lyrical Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, op.107. The Baltimore Sun said of Harrell's performance, "Harrell unlocked those secrets [Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1] with playing that was extraordinarily incisive and gripping." The remainder of the evening's program will feature Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande Suite and Dvořák's Symphony No. 7 in D minor, op.70.

The second week showcases pianist Barry Douglas performing one of Rachmaninoff's most enduring and popular pieces - Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, op.18 on Saturday, July 10. The Los Angeles Times says of Douglas, "the sensitivity of a poet and the fingers of a magician." Also on the evening's program is the world premiere of Bright Sheng's Just Dance.

Sheng served as EMF's first composer-in-residence during the 2009 season. Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major, op.92 will round out the repertoire.

On Saturday, July 17, EMF will introduce 22-year-old violinist Tianwa Yang making her Greensboro debut performing one of Tchaikovsky's best known and most difficult works - Violin Concerto in D major, op.35. The Seattle Times said of Yang's playing "this young woman could outplay the devil...(she) played with fire." Mahler's Symphony No. 6 in A minor ("Tragic") will complete the program.

The fourth week brings guest conductor Christopher Seaman and pianist William Wolfram performing Mendelssohn's improvisational Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, op.25 on Saturday, July 24. Wolfram returns to EMF where he last performed in 2008. During that 2008 performance, Classical Voice of North Carolina's review stated "Wolfram played...with authority and aplomb...more impressive than the pianist's virtuosity was his lyric playing." Seaman will also lead the orchestra in Elgar's In the South (Alassio), op.50 and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 in F minor, op.36.

The season finale on Saturday, July 31 concludes with the incomparable violinist Gil Shaham performing Brahms' only violin concerto - Violin Concerto in D major, op.77. According to The Buffalo News, "[Shaham's] glee and virtuosity were such that...people burst into spontaneous applause...That is what this guy does." Schwarz will conduct the final piece of the season - Richard Strauss' epic symphonic poem, Eine Alpensinfonie (Alpine Symphony).

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Shawn Galvin 202-297-3833
shawn@newmusicraleigh.org

New Music Raleigh to Present Steve Reich’s Different Trains

April, 2010 (Raleigh, NC) -- On April 27th, New Music Raleigh, a brand new performing arts group, will return to Meymandi Theater at the Murphey School for a performance of Pulitzer Prize winning composer Steve Reich’s Different Trains. The program will also feature the world premiere of Lick by Brett William Dietz and Trilogy by Dave Maric. The concert begins at 7:30pm and tickets will be available at the door for $10.00.

New Music Raleigh is a collective of the area’s most dynamic classical musicians, dedicated to performing the works of living composers. By presenting this living music in unique venues and through collaboration with other artists, NMR offers a fresh musical perspective to Raleigh by providing captiviating yet casual concerts in which the audience and performers are connected. In its first year of existence, NMR has proven to be one of Raleigh's most forward-thinking arts organizations, performing with indy rock band Lost in the Trees in addition to giving modern edgy composition a voice in the city. New Music Raleigh's upcoming projects will feature more cross-genre collaboration, intimate audience experiences, and exceptional musical performances. Steve Reich was recently called "our greatest living composer" (The New York Times), "America’s greatest living composer." (The Village VOICE), “...the most original musical thinker of our time” (The NewYorker) and “...among the great composers of the century” (The New York Times).. From his early taped speech pieces It's Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966) to his and video artist Beryl Korot’s digital video opera Three Tales (2002), Mr. Reich's path has embraced not only aspects of Western Classical music, but the structures, harmonies, and rhythms of non-Western and American vernacular music, particularly jazz. "There's just a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history and Steve Reich is one of them," states The Guardian (London). In April 2009 Steve Reich was awarded the Pulitzer prize in Music for his composition 'Double Sextet'.

For more information contact Shawn Galvin at 202-297-3833

Hickory Choral Society

With a “Serenade to Music” for thirty-three years, the Hickory Choral Society presents their spring concert with guest composer and conductor, Donald McCullough, Conductor of Master Chorale of Washington, D.C. The annual Spring Concert will be presented on Sunday March 28, 2010, at First Baptist Church, 339 2nd Avenue NW in Hickory, North Carolina. The 3:00 PM concert is free and open to the public.

From the spring of 1978 to the spring of 2010, the Hickory Choral Society continues to delight audiences with excellent choral music literature. The group includes over 110 singers from Catawba and surrounding counties. The spring concert repertoire is varied and exciting and features Haydn’s well-known MISSA IN TEMPORE BELLI (Mass in Time of War) also known as PAUKENMESSE (Kettledrum Mass) as well as several pieces composed by our guest conductor, Donald McCullough.

For more information or directions to the church call 828-322-2210.

The Hickory Choral Society is a funded affiliate of the Catawba County Council for the Arts.

Hickory Choral Society 243 3rd Avenue NE, Suite 2-N Hickory, NC 28601

Debra Caywood, Office Manager 828-322-2210 noteworthy@hickorychoralsociety.org www.hickorychoralsociety.org

Aliénor, an international harpsichord organization, is presenting a three concert series, Back to Bach and Beyond: Redefining the Harpsichord, in:

• Durham – Nov. 12 at School of Science and Math, 7:30pm
• Chapel Hill – Nov. 13 at University United Methodist Church, 8pm
• Raleigh – Nov. 14 at Meredith College, 8pm

Harpsichordists Elaine Funaro and Beverly Biggs, of Durham, along with Rebecca Pechefsky of NYC will play Bach selections with the accompaniment of a quintet of baroque string players. Showcased will be the sonata for two and three harpsichords by Aliénor winning composer Edwin McLean of Chapel Hill. The concerts will also be the unveiling of master harpsichord builder Richard Kingston's final career instrument, Opus 333. The details of this unique instrument, commissioned by Funaro, have come from throughout NC. Durham artist Lisa Creed painted the case and lid in her dynamic abstract style and craftsmen in Mooresboro, Marshall, and Asheville created the stand/cradle, hinges, and handstop pulls.

Here is the web link to Aliénor's web site, http://www.harpsichord-now.org/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NORTH CAROLINA SYMPHONY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jeannie Mellinger
919.789.5484
jmellinger@ncsymphony.org

North Carolina Symphony Resident Conductor William Henry Curry to Perform “An Evening of American Music” in Taiwan

(Raleigh, November 3) -- William Henry Curry, the North Carolina Symphony’s Resident Conductor, has been invited by the American Institute in Kaohsiung, Taiwan to participate in a landmark program which aims to convey the joy of American music to the people of that city. Curry will conduct the Kaohsiung Symphony Orchestra, considered one of Taiwan’s most accomplished music ensembles.

“In the absence of official diplomatic relations between the US and Taiwan, our office functions as the de facto US Consulate in Kaohsiung,” says Institute Branch Chief Chris Castro, “and is therefore actively involved in promoting a wide range of US cultural programs in southern Taiwan.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Burning Coal Theatre: The Laramie Project - Ten Years Later (An Epilogue)

Burning Coal Theatre Company of Raleigh, NC will join 99 other theatres nationwide to simultaneously present the world premiere staged reading of The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later by Moises Kaufman, Leigh Fondakowski, Greg Pierotti, Andy Paris and Stephen Belber of the Tectonic Theatre Project of New York City. The reading, a fundraiser for Equality North Carolina Foundation, will take place on Monday, October 12th at 7:30 pm at Meymandi Theatre at the Murphey School, 224 Polk Street, Raleigh. Only 140 tickets will be sold. For reservations, please call 919-834-4001. Tickets: $10. All ticket revenue will go to Equality North Carolina Foundation.

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