Contact:
Carl Herko
Vice President, Media & Public Relations
503-416-6347
cherko@orsymphony.org
March 7, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(PORTLAND, Ore.) — The concert may carry the title “Classical Elegance,” but there’ll be nothing stale or stuffy to be heard when the Oregon Symphony performs Mar. 29-31 in a program filled with exciting firsts for the orchestra.
For starters, two of the concert’s four works have never before been performed by the Oregon Symphony in its 112-year history. They include the opening piece on the program, Johann Christian Bach’s Sinfonia in E-Flat major for Double Orchestra, which receives its first Oregon Symphony hearing a mere 227 years after it was composed. The orchestra will actually be split into two separate ensembles to perform the Sinfonia, also a rare occurrence for the Oregon Symphony.
The second Oregon Symphony premiere will be a work that’s almost two centuries younger than the Bach Sinfonia: Bohemian composer Bohuslav Martinů’s The Frescoes of Piero della Francesca. Martinů – who spent the first 13 years of his life living atop the church bell tower in a small Bohemian town where his father worked as the bell ringer – was inspired to write his impressionistic The Frescoes of Piero della Francesca after discovering the Renaissance frescoes in 1954 while on vacation in Italy.
Leading the orchestra will be a rising star among European conductors, Juanjo Mena, who also makes his Oregon Symphony debut at these concerts. Mena, artistic director of the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra in Spain, has conducted only one other American orchestra before this – but his 2004 debut with the Baltimore Symphony was so successful, he was immediately invited back to lead that orchestra again, twice, in the seasons that followed.
For these concerts, Mena will lead the Oregon Symphony in three performances, scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Mar. 29 and 30, and 8 p.m. Monday, Mar. 31, in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.
After all the firsts, the program will conclude with two longtime audience favorites: Ludwig van Beethoven’s exuberant Symphony No. 2 in D major and Richard Wagner’s majestic and boldly melodic Overture to Tannhäuser.
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. Student rush tickets are also available for $10.
Presenting sponsor of the concert is Deloitte & Touche, with additional support from Lufthansa. Media partners are The Oregonian, KINK-FM and KBPS All Classical Radio.