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  • GUEST ARTIST ANSSI KARTUNNEN AND ESA-PEKKA SALONEN LEAD PHILHARMONIC NEW MUSIC GROUP IN GREEN UMBRELLA PROGRAM FEATURING THE CELLO
  • Jan. 14, 2003
  • SALONEN'S MANIA AND BOULEZ' MESSAGESQUISSE FOR SOLO CELLO AND CELLO ENSEMBLE FEATURED; KARTTUNEN IS BOTH SOLOIST AND CONDUCTOR

    January 14 at 8 PM at Colburn School's Zipper Hall

    On Tuesday, January 14, 2003 at 8 p.m. at the Colburn School of Performing Arts' Zipper Hall, Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen and his friend, cellist Anssi Kartunnen, lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic's New Music Group in a program featuring contemporary works for the cello and cello ensembles. The Green Umbrella program includes Esa-Pekka Salonen's work for solo cello and mixed ensemble, Mania, which was written for the evening's soloist, Anssi Karttunen.

    Also featured on this program is Pierre Boulez' Messagesquisse for solo cello (to be played by Kartunnen) and cello ensemble, and Denis Cohen's Eleistä for cello ensemble. Both are led by Salonen. Kartunnen takes a turn on the podium to conduct the world premiere of his transcription for cello ensemble of Lindberg's Etude from the original version for piano; Berio's Korot; and Henze's Trauer-Ode, all for cello ensemble.

    Finnish cellist ANSSI KARTTUNEN is one of the most versatile performers on his instrument. He leads a busy career as a soloist and chamber music player, performing extensively throughout the world, including performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic; Finnish, Swedish, Danish and Dutch Radio Orchestras, the Philharmonia Orchestra, and the BBC Symphony. Karttunen also performs at most of the major festivals in Europe.

    Composer MAGNUS LINDBERG was born in Helsinki in 1958. Following piano studies he entered the Sibelius Academy where his composition teachers included Einojuhani Rautavaara and Paavo Heininen. Heininen encouraged his pupils to look beyond the prevailing Finnish conservative and nationalist aesthetics, and to explore the works of the European avant-garde. In 1980, this thinking led to the founding of an informal group known as the Ears Open Society. Made up of Lindberg and his contemporaries, including Los Angeles Philharmonic Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Ears Open Society encouraged a greater awareness of mainstream modernism. In 1981, Lindberg moved to Paris to study with Vinko Globokar and Gérard Grisey. A year later, his compositional breakthrough came with two large-scale works. Recent works, including Feria (1997), Cantigas (1999) and the Cello Concerto (1999), have established Lindberg as one of the most invigorating of international composers working in the orchestral field.

    In the aftermath of the Second World War, many composers of LUCIANO BERIO's generation felt obliged to wipe the slate clean. To a composer with roots as deep in the achievements of the past four centuries as Berio, this was never an option. His work has constantly re-invented continuities where others saw only the possibilities of rupture. That is not to say that he has ever been afflicted with the nostalgia that has come to the surface in a good deal of the music of this century. On the contrary, he has maintained an insatiable curiosity about the explorations of his contemporaries - musical or otherwise.

    Composer and conductor PIERRE BOULEZ, one of the most influential musical figures of the past century, was born in 1925 and began composing in the mid-1940s. His innovative, contemporary compositions are performed worldwide. A decade later, Boulez became sought after as a conductor, specializing in twentieth-century music. He founded the Domaine Musical in Paris, and eventually became music director of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic in the 1970s. He later reduced his conducting schedule to concentrate on the Institute for Research and Coordination Acoustic/Music (IRCAM), which he founded and directed until 1991. Boulez formed close relationships with several American and European orchestras, being appointed principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1995, touring with the London Symphony Orchestra, and collaborating on several dramatic works by Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Bártok, with Pina Bausch. He currently records for Deutsche Grammophon and his recordings have garnered 24 Grammy awards.

    Composer and conductor DENIS COHEN has earned a distinguished reputation in Europe as a contemporary music specialist. He began his musical studies at the Conservatoire National d'Orleans as a pianist, winning a First Prize in Piano in 1967. He continued his studies with Vlado Perlemuter at the Conservatoire National Superior de Paris. Between 1968 and 1979 he studied piano, analysis, score-writing and composition at the Paris Conservatoire and in Los Angeles. During that time he also appeared as a piano soloist, accompanist, and chamber musician. He was appointed Assistant Conductor under Pierre Boulez of the Ensemble Intercontemporain for the 1981-82 season and has been guest conductor of numerous orchestras. The French Ministry of Culture, Radio France, Ensemble Intercontemporain, IRCAM, and the Strasbourg Festival-Musica have all commissioned works by Denis Cohen.

    HANS WERNER HENZE was born in 1926 and spent the first twenty years of his life under Germany's Fascist dictatorship. He resumed his music studies at the end of the war. His first composition, a chamber concerto, was performed as early as 1946. In 1953 he moved to Italy, where he spent the next nine years. It was here that his two operas König Hirsch and Der Prinz von Homburg and his three-act ballet Undine were written. In 1963 he moved to Rome and three years, later finally settled in Marino, a village to the south of Rome. Among the principal works written there are Elegy for Young Lovers and The Bassarids (both in collaboration with W.H. Auden), Der Junge Lord (a comic opera to a libretto by Ingeborg Bachmann), We come to the River and The English Cat (both with Edward Bond), the full-length ballet Orpheus, a free version of Monteverdi's Ritorno d'Ulisse and, finally, Das Verratene Meer and Venus und Adonis (both to librettos by Hans-Ulrich Treichel). Hans Werner Henze composed an opera for the 2003 Salzburg Festival, L'Upupa oder Der Triumph der Sohnesliebe to his own libretto. The last ten years have also seen the composition of four symphonies. Beginning during his early years as a freelance composer and continuing right up to the present day, Hans Werner Henze has also written a whole series of solo concertos, as well as piano pieces and chamber music. Between 1972 and 1996 Hans Werner Henze also left his mark on the world of European music through his activities as a teacher.

    ESA-PEKKA SALONEN, the tenth conductor to head the Los Angeles Philharmonic, began his tenure as Music Director in October 1992. Salonen made his American debut conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic in November 1984, and he has conducted the orchestra every season since. Among the many highlights of Salonen's activities with the Philharmonic have been world premieres of new works by composers John Adams, Bernard Rands, Rodion Shchedrin, Steven Stucky and Salonen himself, well-received Ligeti and Stravinsky Festivals, appearances at the Ojai Festival, eight critically acclaimed international tours since 1992, and his extensive discography with the Orchestra for Sony Classical. Salonen was born in Helsinki, Finland in 1958. He made his conducting debut in London with the Philharmonia Orchestra in September 1983. He served as principal guest conductor of the Philharmonia from 1985 to 1994 and as a principal conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1985 to 1995.

    EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:

    TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 8 PM


    -GREEN UMBRELLA -

    Zipper Hall, Colburn School of Performing Arts

    LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC

    ESA-PEKKA SALONEN, conductor

    ANSSI KARTTUNEN, cello

    LINDBERG: Etude

    BERIO: Korot

    HENZE: Trauer-Ode

    COHEN: Eleistä

    BOULEZ: Messagesquisse

    SALONEN: Mania

    Tickets ($26) are on sale now at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion box office, all Ticketmaster outlets (Robinsons-May, Tower Records, Ritmo Latino, and selected Wherehouse locations), and by credit card phone order at 323.850.2000. Tickets are also available online at laphil.com. For further information, please call 323.850.2000.

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  • Contact:

    Elizabeth Hinckley, 323/850-2047; Melanie Gravdal, 323/850-2021