March 8, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Laureate Music Director James DePreist has been forced to cancel his March 13-15 appearances with the Oregon Symphony due to a back strain that resulted in surgery. He is expected to recover in time to conduct the April 17-19 concerts featuring Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 and pianist Andre Watts. DePreist is currently recuperating at the Mayo Clinic Hospital in Scottsdale, Ariz., where he underwent surgery March 5.
Internationally renowned conductor David Atherton will conduct the “Tchaikovsky’s Fourth” concerts in DePreist’s place. As a result of the conducting change, the premiere of Sinfonia Romanza by John Peel will be replaced by Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Overture. Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 4 and Mozart’s Horn Concerto featuring John Cox will be performed as scheduled.
Co-founder of the London Sinfonietta, David Atherton studied music at Cambridge University where his operatic conducting aroused much interest from the national press. In 1967 Sir Georg Solti invited him to join the music staff of the Royal Opera House, London, and the following year, at age 24, he became the youngest conductor ever to appear there. In his twelve years as Resident Conductor of the Royal Opera he gave over one hundred and fifty performances at Covent Garden and conducted the Opera on a highly successful visit to La Scala. In recent seasons, he conducted the Metropolitan Opera and the English National Opera in Benjamin Britten’s Death in Venice.
Atherton’s work in the recording studio has earned an Edison Award, many Grammy Award nominations and the sought-after Grand Prix du Disque. He has traveled widely, particularly to the United States where he regularly visits the leading North American orchestras, notably those in Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minnesota, Montreal, New York and San Francisco. Other recent engagements have taken him to Australia and Japan as well as the Czech Republic, Sweden, Holland, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Germany.
