Contact:
Carl Herko
Vice President, Media & Public Relations
503-416-6347
cherko@orsymphony.org

January 25, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BARBER TO BIZET, COPLAND TO LISZT:
OREGON SYMPHONY PRESENTS A SMORGASBORD OF SOUND

(PORTLAND, Ore.) — The Oregon Symphony serves up a little something for everyone Feb. 16-18 when Music Director Carlos Kalmar takes the podium to lead the orchestra in a classical series program of short works – some popular favorites, some little-known discoveries – spanning the 19th and 20th centuries.

The program begins with a three-minute-long gem that always places near the top of every music lover’s list of favorite American masterpieces: Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, the composer’s noble and glorious tribute to the dignity of the American Everyman.

Brazilian-born pianist Arnaldo Cohen joins the orchestra as guest soloist in a performance of Franz Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2, a radically innovative creation that toys with the very idea of what a concerto is by compressing it from the usual three movements into a seamless, single-movement work.

Other highlights on the program include:

• Samuel Barber’s Souvenirs, an evocative set of six short dances that pays homage to the bygone glory of New York’s Plaza Hotel in the opulent era before World War I.
• George Bizet’s Symphony No. 1 in C major, a work written in 1855, when the composer was just 17 years old, but never published and never performed until 60 years after Bizet’s death – after the long-missing manuscript was accidentally rediscovered.
• Liszt’s Les Preludes, the best-known and most popular symphonic poem ever written by the composer who invented that musical genre.

Three performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 16 and 17, and 8 p.m. Monday, Feb. 18, in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.

Tickets are available for $15 to $93 at the Oregon Symphony Ticket Office, 923 SW Washington St., in downtown Portland. Ticket office hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Tickets may also be purchased by phone at (503) 228-1353 or (800) 228-7343 during the same hours, or online at any time from the orchestra’s web site, www.orsymphony.org.

Tickets are also available through ticketmaster.com or by calling (503) 790-ARTS. Discounted tickets for groups of 10 or more are available through the symphony’s group sales hotline, (503) 416-6380.

Saturday’s performance is sponsored by the Fred Andrianoff family. Classical series concerts of the Oregon Symphony are sponsored by Lufthansa, with media support from The Oregonian, KINK-FM and KBPS All Classical Radio.