January 31, 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OREGON SYMPHONY UNVEILS ITS 2010/11 SEASON:
STELLAR LINEUP FEATURES MUSIC’S BRIGHTEST STARS

Highlights Include A-List Soloists, a Broad Range of Premieres
and – in its 115th Season – the Orchestra’s Carnegie Hall Debut

(PORTLAND, Ore.) – Music Director Carlos Kalmar and the Oregon Symphony today announced the orchestra’s 2010/11 concert season. It’s a stellar lineup that begins with a one-night-only gala performance on Sept. 16 featuring violin superstar Joshua Bell and just builds from there, bringing many of the music world’s biggest names to Portland along the way before it wraps up May 21-23 with a weekend of concerts celebrating the orchestra’s own musicians upon their return from the orchestra’s Carnegie Hall debut in New York.

David Stabler, classical critic for The Oregonian, characterizes the season as “big names, big music.” Its 20 different classical programs – 16 of them on the classical subscription series plus four classical-themed “specials” – encompass 68 orchestral works, three for voice, 10 by living composers and 23 pieces never before performed by the Oregon Symphony in its 115-year history. Of the 16 programs on the classical subscription series, 15 will feature music being performed by the orchestra for the first time ever.

Other highlights include guest appearances by some of the top names in classical music today, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma, performing with the Oregon Symphony for the first time since 2001; pianists Emanuel Ax and Lang Lang (returning for a solo recital); and violinist Hilary Hahn, making her long-awaited Portland debut.

Less familiar, perhaps, but no less thrilling will be the concerts featuring percussion whiz Colin Currie in the orchestra’s premiere of the Percussion Concerto that composer Jennifer Higdon wrote specifically for him, and the Oregon Symphony debut of the latest rising star among Chinese pianists, 22-year-old Yuja Wang, who’ll take on Rachmaninoff’s fiendishly difficult Piano Concerto No. 3.

Kalmar, in his eighth season as music director, will conduct 12 programs (10 of the 16 classical subscription concerts plus the one-night-only specials with violinist Joshua Bell and cellist Yo-Yo Ma).  Resident Conductor Gregory Vajda, beginning his sixth season with the orchestra, conducts a classical subscription program that features one of his own compositions, Duevoe, another first for the orchestra.

The classical subscription series gets under way the weekend of Oct. 2-4 with Kalmar on the podium, joined by violinist Hilary Hahn – two-time Grammy winner and the 2008 Gramophone Artist of the Year – making her Oregon Symphony debut. Hahn will perform the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. Also on the program: The Oregon Symphony premiere of “Phenomenon … the Mysterious and the Unexplained,” a short piece written in 2004 by the young Thai composer Narong Prangcharoen, and a blockbuster from the middle of the 20th century, Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5.

Kalmar continues his informal tradition of presenting one of the monumental Mahler symphonies each season: Scheduled for the Nov. 20-22 weekend is the first Oregon Symphony performance ever of Mahler Symphony No. 10. Also on that program of rarities: English pianist Stephen Hough returns to perform Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 here for the first time in more than two decades, as well as the orchestra’s premiere of the Coronation March from La Prophète by German composer Giacomo Meyerbeer.

Just before the season wraps up, on Thursday, May 12, 2011, the orchestra travels to New York for its debut at music’s most prestigious venue, Carnegie Hall. The Oregon Symphony is one of seven orchestras from across North America invited to take part in the first Spring for Music Festival there.

Pops specialist Jeff Tyzik is back for his third season as principal pops conductor to lead a four-concert series. The season also includes a three-concert kids series called “Pink Lemonade” and a wide range of special concerts.

Subscriptions – and, for subscribers only, single tickets for special concerts – go on sale at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 3. Special concerts go on sale to single-ticket buyers May 17. Tickets for subscription concerts go on sale to single-ticket buyers Aug. 2.

Complete information on all of the Oregon Symphony’s 2010/11 performances can be found in its season catalog and on the web site OrSymphony.org.

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