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

April 2, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THE OREGON SYMPHONY IN MAY:
JOSHUA BELL, PINK MARTINI JOIN IN ON THE SEASON’S BIG FINISH

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(PORTLAND, Ore.) – The Oregon Symphony’s 2008/09 season comes to an unforgettable conclusion in May and early June with a blockbuster series of concerts that feature one of Gustav Mahler’s symphonic masterworks, an appearance by the hottest violinist performing today and one more trip down memory lane with Portland pops legend Norman Leyden. It all wraps up with three not-to-be-missed live recording sessions at which the orchestra takes the stage alongside Pink Martini. Complete details follow:

SATURDAY-MONDAY, MAY 9-11:
MUSIC DIRECTOR CARLOS KALMAR TAKES ON MAHLER’S FOURTH SYMPHONY

• When and Where: Three performances, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, May 9 and 10, and 8 p.m. Monday, May 11; Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.

• The Performers: The Oregon Symphony, with Music Director Carlos Kalmar on the podium, joined by soprano Karina Gauvin.

• The Program:
• Erik Satie: Two Gymnopedies
• Samuel Barber: Knoxville: Summer of 1915
• Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 4

• More Background Info and photos:
• On soprano Karina Gauvin: http://www.karinagauvin.com/
• On composer Erik Satie: http://www.af.lu.se/~fogwall/satie.html   
• On composer Samuel Barber: http://www.schirmer.com/default.aspx?TabId=2419&State_2872=2&ComposerId_2872=72

• Tickets: $15 to $98; 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, orsymphony.org. Tickets are also available through ticketmaster.com or by calling (503) 790-ARTS.

• What’s So Special About These Concerts:
• The program begins with a performance of two of French composer-pianist Erik Satie’s dreamlike (and instantly recognizable) Gymnopedies, orchestrated by Claude Debussy. The Oregon Symphony has performed the Gymnopedies only one other time in its history, in 1966.
• Samuel Barber’s lush and languid Knoxville: Summer of 1915 is based on a prose poem by James Agee that evokes the writer’s Southern childhood.  
• Canadian soprano Karina Gauvin describes Knoxville: Summer of 1915 as “just so quintessentially American  … people can’t help but be moved by that music and the poetry.” Gauvin also sings the last movement of the Mahler Fourth Symphony, a work she calls “one of the most beautiful pieces in musical history … full of light and sparkle.”
• Among the 21 CDs in Gauvin’s discography are a 2000 recording of Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with Marin Alsop and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and a 2003 recording of the Mahler Fourth with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal.
• Gauvin – whose voice Kalmar describes as “creamy” and “phenomenal” – has appeared with the Oregon Symphony once before, in May 2006, when she was among the soloists in performances of the Mozart Requiem.
• The concert concludes with Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, perhaps his most accessible. It continues an informal tradition of Kalmar to present one of the great Mahler symphonies as a sort of grand finale to each season. (So far during Kalmar’s tenure as music director, he has led the Oregon Symphony in performances of Mahler’s Second, Fifth, Seventh and Ninth symphonies; his Symphony No. 1, “The Titan,” will close the 2009/10 season.)
• The presenting sponsor of these concerts is Fleishman Hillard.

 

SATURDAY-MONDAY, MAY 16-18:
THE CLASSICAL SEASON ENDS WITH VIOLIN SUPERSTAR JOSHUA BELL

• When and Where: Three performances, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, May 16 and 17, and 8 p.m. Monday, May 18; Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. (NOTE: This concert will also be performed at 8 p.m. Tuesday, May 19, at Willamette University’s Smith Hall in Salem.)

• The Performers: The Oregon Symphony, led by Music Director Carlos Kalmar, with violin soloist Joshua Bell.

• The Program:
• Felix Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto
• Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 7

• More Background Info and photos: :
• On violinist Joshua Bell: http://www.joshuabell.com/
• On Bell’s violin, the 1713 Gibson Stradivarius:  http://www.cozio.com/Instrument.aspx?id=147

• Tickets: FOR THE PORTLAND PERFORMANCES: $30 to $125; 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, orsymphony.org. Tickets are also available through ticketmaster.com or by calling (503) 790-ARTS.

FOR THE SALEM PERFORMANCE: $25 to $43, available from TicketsWest.

• What’s So Special About These Concerts:
• The program includes two major masterworks: Felix Mendelssohn’s immensely popular Violin Concerto, with violin superstar Joshua Bell, and the monumental Seventh Symphony of Anton Bruckner, which receives its first Oregon Symphony performance in more than a dozen years.
• Violinist Joshua Bell, a one-time teen-age prodigy, is now 41 and the closest thing classical music has to a rock star. These are his first performances with the Oregon Symphony since 2002.
• Bell will perform Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, a work he first played publicly at the age of 12. He describes it as “the perfect violin concerto. … It’s so well put together, the proportions are just so perfect, it’s exciting, it’s beautiful, it just has everything.” Bell performs the Mendelssohn with his own cadenza.
• Bell performs on a violin made in 1713 by Antonio Stradivari that is known as the Gibson Stradivarius, which is infamous for having been stolen in 1936 from the Carnegie Hall dressing room of violinist Bronislaw Huberman while Huberman was on stage playing another instrument. After the theft, the Gibson Stradivarius disappeared without a trace for more than a half-century, until it was offered for sale in London in 1987. Bell acquired it in 2001.
• Very large crowds are expected for all three performances. Ticket availability for the Saturday, May 16, concert is extremely limited. Best availability is on Monday, May 18.
• The presenting sponsor of these concerts is The Oregonian.

 

MONDAY-TUESDAY, MAY 25-26:
NORMAN LEYDEN RETURNS FOR ONE MORE SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY

• When and Where: Two performances, at 7:30 p.m. Monday, May 25 (Memorial Day), and a special matinee at 2 p.m. Tuesday, May 26; Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.

• The Performers: The Oregon Symphony, with Laureate Associate Conductor Norman Leyden on the podium, joined by guest singers Susannah Mars, Renée Cleland and Richard Weidlich.

• The Program: A trip down memory lane featuring a large selection of popular tunes Norman Leyden’s many Portland fans have come to expect from his nearly four decades of concerts with the Oregon Symphony. They include “Sentimental Journey,” “Flying Down to Rio,” Begin the Beguine,” “Stardust” and “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” to name a few.

• More Background Info and Photos:
• On Norman Leyden and his guest singers: http://www.orsymphony.org/newsroom/artists.aspx

• Tickets: $20 to $90; 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, orsymphony.org. Tickets are also available through ticketmaster.com or by calling (503) 790-ARTS.

• What’s So Special About These Concerts:
• The concert is designed specially to appeal to the legions of fans Norman Leyden made during the 34 years he served as music director of the Oregon Symphony’s pops series, which he founded in 1970. When he retired in 2004, Leyden was given a lifetime honorary appointment as laureate associate conductor.
• Leyden, who was inducted into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame in 2008, began his career in World War II, when he served in England and France with Maj. Glenn Miller’s legendary Air Force Band. At the opposite end of his career, he celebrated his 90th birthday in October 2007 by leading a Big Band concert at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.
• In addition to an evening performance on Memorial Day, May 25, the concert will feature an Oregon Symphony rarity: a weekday matinee performance that begins at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, May 26.

 

SUNDAY-TUESDAY, MAY 31-JUNE 2:
PINK MARTINI RECORDS ITS FIRST LIVE ALBUM WITH THE OREGON SYMPHONY

• When and Where: Three performances, at 7:30 p.m. each evening on May 31, June 1 and June 2; Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.

• The Performers: The Oregon Symphony, with Music Director Carlos Kalmar on the podium, shares its home stage with Portland’s own salon orchestra, Pink Martini, and leader Thomas Lauderdale.

• The Program: In true Pink Martini fashion, the exact program is a succession of surprises that spring from the creative mind of band leader Thomas Lauderdale and will only be revealed as they unfold at the concert hall.  

• More Background Info and Photos:
• On Pink Martini: http://www.pinkmartini.com/

• Tickets: $25 to $150; 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, orsymphony.org. Tickets are also available through ticketmaster.com or by calling (503) 790-ARTS.

• What’s So Special About These Concerts:
• Pink Martini, Portland’s little touring orchestra, has developed a worldwide cult following since it was brought together by front man Thomas Lauderdale in 1994. They’ve been described by The New York Times as “jet set, vintage-chic, more than a little campy.”
• All three performances will be recorded for Pink Martini’s first live album and first album with a symphony orchestra. (They’ve previously released three studio recordings.)
• Lauderdale, an active and longtime Oregon Symphony supporter, says he specifically wanted Pink Martini’s first orchestra recording to be with the Oregon Symphony, even though Pink Martini has performed with more than 30 orchestras around the world and large orchestras elsewhere sought to collaborate on the record project. “It was the first orchestra we ever played with,” he said in a recent interview. “They sound great. The brass section sounds amazing.” 
• Lauderdale also performed with the Oregon Symphony as piano soloist earlier this season, earning rave reviews. Writing in The Oregonian, music critic David Stabler called the solo performance “thrilling,” adding: “Portland's Peter Pan of the piano went uptown … to show the classical crowd what's what. Did he show them.”
• Sell-out crowds are expected for all three performances. Only a small handful of seats, mostly singles, currently remain for the first performance on Sunday, May 31. Best availability is for the Tuesday, June 2, performance.
• The presenting sponsor of these concerts is First Independent Bank.

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