January 7, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Portland, Ore. …Violinist Leila Josefowicz, considered by composer John Adams to be the finest interpreter of his Violin Concerto, performs that exciting work in a concert that also features the return of acclaimed guest conductor Yakov Kreizberg leading the Oregon Symphony in Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 on Jan. 29, 30 and 31 at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Media support is provided by The Oregonian. Lufthansa is the exclusive airline sponsor for the Symphony’s Classical series.
The Chicago Sun-Times describes Josefowicz as “playing with a zest and fiery personality that has guaranteed her a distinctive profile among the current pack of twenty-something violinists.” Written just 12 years ago, Adams’ electrifying virtuoso concerto was awarded the 1995 Grawemeyer Award in Music Composition and quickly became a standard part of the violin repertoire for a number of soloists, including Josefowicz.
Kreizberg, the Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Netherlands Philharmonic and Netherlands Chamber Orchestras, begins an unprecedented two-week residency in Oregon with this concert. In addition to this concert, on Feb. 5, 6 and 7 he’ll conduct the Dvořák Cello Concerto and Strauss’ tone poem “Don Juan,” among other works. “With these two concerts, Kreizberg is demonstrating a significant commitment to the Symphony and to Carlos,” says Artistic Administrator Charles Calmer. “He’s in great demand around the world, and we feel very privileged to have him here for two full weeks.”
Kreizberg will lead the orchestra in Shostakovich’s most popular Symphony, the Fifth. Shostakovich wrote it during the Great Terror of 1937, during which time millions of Soviet citizens were arrested, tortured, exiled and executed under Stalin’s repressive rule, including Shostakovich’s sister Mariya. The music carefully balances Shostakovich’s response to the events unfolding around him with a mindful nod to Soviet cultural authorities, who had denounced Shostakovich’s opera, “Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk District” in 1936.
Alex Ross, in a 2001 profile of Adams in The New Yorker, describes Adams’ music as “a sequence of familiar elements arranged in unfamiliar ways.” The Violin Concerto combines the traditional three-movement fast-slow-fast structure of the solo concerto with contemporary musical language. Adams himself is not a string player, so keeping physical capabilities and limitations of the violin in mind was an exciting compositional challenge. “The violin commands incredible lyric intensity and has a fantastic capacity to deliver a white-hot message,” Adams said in an interview.
The concert will open with Beethoven’s Overture to “The Creatures of Prometheus,” originally a full-length ballet now heard only in concert.
Oregon Symphony Classical concerts regularly include additional opportunities for listeners to learn more about the music and the orchestra. These activities include:
Concert Conversations: Dr. Nora Beck, Associate Professor of Music, Lewis & Clark College, and Patrick McElroy of KBPS, AllClassical 89.9 will lead a discussion one hour before the concert focused on how the program illustrates the connection between music and politics. Media support for “Concert Conversations” is provided by Classical Millennium.
Saturday: Guest conductor Yakov Kreizberg will speak briefly from the podium in “Saturday Interactive.” Media support for “Saturday Interactive” is provided by KINKfm102.
Performances are scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 29 and 30 at 7:30 p.m. and Monday, Jan. 31 at 8 p.m. at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Tickets range in price from $18 to $80 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.
The Russian-born American conductor Yakov Kreizberg currently holds the posts of Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Netherlands Philharmonic and Netherlands Chamber Orchestras, and Principal Guest Conductor to the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. He relinquished the post of Generalmusikdirector of the Komische Oper Berlin at the end of the 2000-2001 season, and from 1995 to 2000 was Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.
Kreizberg’s career has taken on international breadth with a wide range of engagements as guest conductor with orchestras in Europe and elsewhere, including the Royal Concertgebouw, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Berlin Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, WDR Köln, NDR Hamburg, Bamberger Symphoniker, Staatskapelle Dresden and London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, BBC Symphony, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Czech Philharmonic, Deutsches Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Russian National Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Bayerische Rundfunk, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Swedish Radio Symphony, Gothenburg Symphony, Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich, NHK Symphony and he has been a regular guest at the BBC Proms. During this season Kreizberg will tour Germany with Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and conduct the Vienna Symphony Orchestra on an extensive tour of Japan.
Kreizberg’s list of North American engagements is impressive and guest conducting engagements include the Philhadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh, Dallas, New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras, the Minnesota Orchestra, Chicago, San Francisco, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Detroit, Atlanta, Houston, St Louis, Boston, Washington National, Toronto and Montreal Symphony Orchestras.
Born in St. Petersburg, Kreizberg started taking piano lessons at the age of five. He studied conducting privately with Ilya A. Musin, before emigrating to the United States in 1976. He was awarded conducting fellowships at Tanglewood with Bernstein, Ozawa and Leinsdorf, and at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute. Rapidly establishing a strong reputation in the United States, Kreizberg won the Eugene Ormandy prize from the University of Michigan and in 1986 was awarded first prize in the Leopold Stokowski Conducting Competition in New York. From 1985 to 1988 he was Music Director of Mannes College Orchestra in New York, and from 1988 to 1994 held a highly successful tenure as General Music Director of Krefeld / Mönchengladbach Opera House and the Niederrheinischer Sinfoniker.
Violinist Leila Josefowicz has won the hearts of audiences around the world with her honest, fresh approach to the repertoire and her dynamic virtuosity.
Josefowicz came to national attention in 1994 when she made her Carnegie Hall debut performing the Tchaikovsky Concerto with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. The performance was immediately followed by her debut recording of the Tchaikovsky and Sibelius concertos for Philips Classics. Since that time, she has appeared with many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras including the Boston and Chicago symphonies, Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras, Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and the NHK Symphony Orchestra. She has collaborated with conductors such as Seiji Ozawa, Valery Gergiev, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Charles Dutoit and Franz Welser-Moest, among others.
Recent engagements in North America include appearances with the Montreal, Detroit, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Seattle, Vancouver and New Jersey symphonies, as well as recitals in San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and New York. During the 2004-2005 season, Josefowicz returns to the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Dallas, St. Louis, Toronto, New World, Indianapolis and Oregon symphonies.
Josefowicz’s recent and upcoming European engagements include appearances with the Munich, Czech and Oslo Philharmonics and the Bamberg and BBC symphonies and recitals at London’s Wigmore Hall and the Barbican and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
Josefowicz has appeared on numerous national television broadcasts including “The Tonight Show,” “Evening at Pops” and PBS’ “Live from Lincoln Center.” Her most recent television appearance was Eugenia Zukerman’s profile of her on CBS Sunday Morning. In January 2002, her performance of John Adams’ Violin Concerto with the BBC Symphony, John Adams conducting, was televised and broadcast throughout Europe.
Josefowicz’s debut recording of Tchaikovsky and Sibelius with Sir Neville Marriner was followed in 1996 by her second CD, “Solo,” which features unaccompanied violin works by Bartók, Kreisler, Ysaÿe, Ernst and Paganini. Both releases were awarded the Diapason d’Or prize.
A recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1994, Josefowicz is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with Jaime Laredo and Jascha Brodsky. In recent seasons she has collaborated with artists such as Martha Argerich, Thomas Hampson, Jaime Laredo, Sylvia McNair, Andras Schiff, Mitsuko Uchida and André Watts.
