November 7, 2003
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Portland, Ore. … Music of Vivaldi tops the bill as guest conductor Robert King leads the Oregon Symphony in their annual “Best of the Baroque” concert with violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti on Dec. 6 at 7:30 p.m. in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. King will conduct an encore performance of this program the following day as part of the “Sundays at Two” series on Dec. 7 at 2 p.m. Corporate support is provided by Southwest Airlines; media support is provided by KINKfm.
King, who is the current artistic director and founder of the acclaimed period musical ensemble The King’s Consort, is particularly known for his interpretations of Baroque music. He has led some of the most noted orchestras of Europe, including the Danish National Radio Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Norrköpings Symfoniorkester, English Chamber Orchestra and Il Giardino Armonico, among others. His upcoming engagements include appearances with the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Orquesta Ciudad de Barcelona and Les Violons du Roy, as well as return visits to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Pablo Sarasate, BBC Singers and four concerts in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw with the Nederlands Chamber Orchestra.
Praised by critics for her “luminous stage presence” and “the beauty and maturity of [her] tone and technical facility,” violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti is in her fifth season as Concertmaster of the Florida Orchestra. Winner of prizes in both the Irving M. Klein International String Competition and the D’Angelo Young Artist Competition for Strings, she is also the first prize violin winner in the National Solo Competition of the American String Teachers Association. A chamber music specialist as well as an orchestral soloist, Moretti has performed at Carnegie Hall and Weill Recital Hall, as well as at the Aspen Music Festival. As a soloist, she has performed with ensembles throughout the southern United States, including the Asheville Symphony, Raleigh Symphony and the Tar River Orchestra. Moretti also appears annually in a concerto performance with The Florida Orchestra for the Masterworks concert series.
This year’s concert features a blend of familiar and lesser-known Baroque masterworks. Highlights include the Spring and Winter concerti from Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons,” and Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3 in C major. Works by Handel and English Baroque composer and organist William Boyce also are scheduled. During the Sundays at Two concert, Symphony violinist Gregory Ewer will speak about the distinctiveness of Baroque musical style.
Performances are scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 6 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Dec. 7 at 2 p.m. at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Tickets for the “Best of the Baroque” concert range in price from $22 to $62; Sundays at Two tickets are $14 for students and seniors, $20 general admission and may be purchased at the Oregon Symphony Ticket Office (923 S.W. Washington), Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or charged by phone at 503-228-1353 or (800) 228-7343. Tickets also may be purchased at all Ticketmaster outlets (503-790-ARTS) or through Ticketmaster Online, via the Symphony's Web site at www.orsymphony.org. Service fees may apply.
Robert King is now widely acclaimed as one of Britain’s leading conductors. Artistic Director of The King’s Consort, he also holds the titles of Artistic Director of Sweden’s Nordic Baroque Music Festival and Artistic Director of the ION Festival in Nürnberg.
Born in 1960, he was a chorister with the world-famous Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge, where his solo performances included a best-selling recording of Duruflé’s “Requiem.” In 1980, while completing his music degree at Cambridge University, King founded the period instrument orchestra and chorus, The King’s Consort. Since then he has toured throughout the world, conducting in almost every European country, North and South America and the Far East, and making more than eighty-five recordings which have sold in excess of one million CD’s and won a series of international awards. He made his BBC Proms conducting debut in 1991 in a concert broadcast on both BBC radio and television, and has since been re-invited on four further occasions.
King now divides his time between an increasingly busy international conducting schedule and work with The King’s Consort. Within the United States, recent guest conducting engagements have included highly-acclaimed performances with the Seattle Symphony, Houston Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra of Washington and Minnesota Symphony. In Europe he has conducted the Danish National Radio Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Norrköpings Symfoniorkester, English Chamber Orchestra, Il Giardino Armonico and most of the Spanish orchestras including the Orquesta e Coro Cuidad de Madrid, Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla, Real Filharmonia de Galicia, Orquesta Sinfónica Euskadi and Orquesta Ciudad de Granada.
King is also a noted choral conductor who has worked with the Netherlands Chamber Choir, BBC Singers, Orfeón Donostiarra, Tölzer Knabenchor, Swiss Radio Choir and Collegium Vocale Ghent. Operatic work has included Handel’s “Ottone” in Tokyo, Osaka and London, Handel’s “Ezio” in the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris, Purcell’s “The Indian Queen” in London and at the Schwetzinger Festspiele and Purcell’s “The Fairy Queen” in Spain and Britain.
Engagements over the coming year include debuts with the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne, RAI National Symphony Orchestra in Turin, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Orquesta Ciudad de Barcelona, Jönköping Sinfonietta, Les Violons du Roy and the Oregon Symphony, as well as return visits to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Pablo Sarasate, BBC Singers, Århus Symphony Orchestra and four concerts in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw with the Nederlands Chamber Orchestra.
Although particularly noted for his interpretation of Baroque repertoire, King also regularly conducts choral and orchestral works from the Classical and Romantic eras, with a special focus on the music of Mozart, Haydn, Schubert and Mendelssohn, and on the music of early twentieth century English composers.
King is widely regarded as a leading expert on the music of Henry Purcell. Alongside extensive recording editions of the composer’s music he was Artistic Director of Wigmore Hall’s Purcell Tercentenary Festival and the hall’s “Bach and his Contemporaries” Festival: his book on Purcell has been hailed as “the definitive biography” of the composer. He is a frequent broadcaster for the BBC, writing and presenting diverse programs.
Lauded as “thoroughly impressive in beauty and maturity of tone and technical facility” and for her “luminous stage presence,” violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti is in her fifth season as Concertmaster of the Florida Orchestra. Winner of prizes in both the Irving M. Klein International String Competition and the D’Angelo Young Artist Competition for Strings, she is also the first prize violin winner in the National Solo Competition of the American String Teachers Association. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors including the Washington International Competition and the Music Teachers National Association.
Moretti began playing the violin at the age of four, making her solo debut at twelve with the Winston-Salem Symphony. She went on to win first place in numerous concerto competitions including the North Carolina Symphony, Richmond Symphony, Cleveland Institute Orchestra, Wilmington Symphony Orchestra and Tar River Orchestra. She has made guest appearances with the Asheville Symphony and the Raleigh Symphony. In 1998, she made her solo concerto debut at Carnegie Hall with the New York Youth Symphony. She appears annually in a concerto performance with The Florida Orchestra for the Masterworks concert series.
As a chamber musician, Moretti has appeared in both Carnegie Hall and Weill Recital Hall and at the Aspen Music Festival, Margess International of Switzerland and the Sarasota Music Festival. In the Tampa Bay area, she appears frequently in recital with colleagues from TFO in a variety of small ensembles as a regular performer with the Florida Orchestra Chamber Players and the Phoenix Chamber Music Society.
As a student of Donald Weilerstein, she earned her Bachelor and Master of Music from The Cleveland Institute of Music, where she was valedictorian. Other master teachers who influenced her development are Zaven Melikian of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Margaret Pardee of The Juilliard School, and Joanne Bath of East Carolina University. Summer studies include the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshop at Carnegie Hall, where she was selected to be a participant, as well as the Aspen Music Festival Center for Advanced Quartet Studies, which she attended with Fellowship awards.
