Assistant Conductor Yasuo Shinozaki Leads Program Featuring Pianist Christopher O'Riley On September 2
Associate Conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya Leads Program
With Soprano Elissa Johnston On September 4
TUESDAY AND THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2 AND 4, AT 8 PM
September 4 sponsored by United Airlines
September 2 and 4 media sponsor: KMOZART 105.1 FM
Los Angeles Philharmonic Assistant Conductor Yasuo Shinozaki leads the Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday, September 2, at 8 p.m. in a program featuring pianist Christopher O'Riley performing the popular Grieg Piano Concerto. The program also features works by a pair of Russian masters, the Lieutenant Kijé Suite by Prokofiev and Symphony No. 2 by Borodin. The Grieg Concerto, one of the composer's most famous large-scale works, has been a favorite since its premiere in 1869. Prokofiev culled his Lieutenant Kijé Suite from his score for the film, which recounts, with biting humor, the adventures of a soldier invented because someone mistakenly entered the name Kijé in a military company's rolls. The acknowledged masterpiece of a Russian master of an earlier era, Borodin's Second Symphony, rounds out the program. The Symphony is exuberant, vital, melancholy, and wistful by turns, and Russian to the core.
On September 4, Associate Conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya conducts the orchestra in a program of American music that opens with Dvorák's Symphony No. 9 ("From the New World") followed by performances of Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915, with soprano Elissa Johnston, and a suite of music from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. Though Czech to the musical core, Dvorák traveled to New York in 1891 to teach at the newly-founded National Conservatory there. The "New World" Symphony was the result of his encounter with the music of America, especially the songs of Stephen Foster and African-American spirituals. Knoxville is the creation of a 20th-century romanticist, Samuel Barber, and his sensitive response to James Agee's poem about a young boy lying in the grass outside his Tennessee home, listening to the sounds around him resulted in a classic work for soprano and orchestra. The program concludes with music from another 20th-century classic inspired by life in the South, George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess, in "A Symphonic Picture" arranged for orchestra by Robert Russell Bennett.
YASUO SHINOZAKI, assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, regularly leads the Philharmonic in its community concert series and in its Toyota Symphonies for Youth programs. He has conducted a wide range of repertoire with orchestras such as the Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra and Osaka Symphony Orchestra in Japan, as well as the Helsinki and the Turku Philharmonics. Shinozaki made his opera debut in 1993 with The Marriage of Figaro in Tokyo and has since conducted at several opera houses in Japan. Shinozaki completed his conducting studies at the Vienna Musikhochschule with Leopold Hager and has also worked with Seiji Ozawa and Bernard Haitink at Tanglewood. Shinozaki last appeared at the Hollywood Bowl in 2002.
Pianist CHRISTOPHER O'RILEY enjoys a thriving concert career. His broad repertoire ranges from music of the English Renaissance and French Baroque periods to the new works of today's leading composers and such non-classical forms as the tango. O'Riley's honors include top prizes at the Van Cliburn, Leeds, Busoni, and Montreal competitions, as well as an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Andrew Wolf Memorial Chamber Music Prize. As an emerging young pianist, he enjoyed the sponsorship of Young Concert Artists, the Xerox/Affiliate Artists Program, and the Pro Musicis Foundation. He is also the host of a nationally distributed radio program for Public Radio International, "From the Top," which showcases the vibrant performances and personalities of young musicians. O'Riley last appeared at the Hollywood Bowl in 1986.
Los Angeles Philharmonic Associate Conductor MIGUEL HARTH-BEDOYA is Music Director of the Fort Worth Symphony, a title he also holds with the Auckland Philharmonia in New Zealand. As one of the most exciting young conductors in America, he has an active guest-conducting schedule, which includes appearances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Quebec Symphony, and the Mexico National Symphony. Festival appearances include Grant Park, Tanglewood, Rencontres Musicales d'Evian in France, the Domaine Forget International Festival in Quebec, and the Musicarchitettura International Festival in Italy. Born in 1968 in Lima, Peru, Miguel Harth-Bedoya holds degrees in conducting from The Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School. Harth-Bedoya last conducted at the Bowl in 2002.
Soprano ELISSA JOHNSTON appears throughout the United States and Great Britain in both operatic and concert repertory. She made her Lincoln Center debut last season singing Brahms' Liebeslieder Waltzes with the New York City Ballet and returns this season for additional performances of the work. She sang the role of Pat Nixon in the world premiere of John Adams' concert suite from Nixon in China entitled The Nixon Tapes at the 1998 Aspen Music Festival, with the composer conducting. She has performed John Harbison's Mirabai Songs at the 1998 Ojai Festival under David Zinman and was featured in a solo recital at the 1998 Aldeburgh Festival. Other orchestral engagements include the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Atlanta Symphony under Yoel Levi, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. She recently performed in Mahler's Second and Fourth Symphonies with the Santa Barbara Symphony, appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic's New Music Group under composer/conductor Tan Dun, and sang at the 1997 Ojai Festival under Daniel Harding. She also appeared in concert performances of Tchaikovsky's Iolanta with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Valery Gergiev.
EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:
Tuesday, September 2, 8 PM
Hollywood Bowl (2301 N. Highland Avenue)
LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC
YASUO SHINOZAKI, conductor
CHRISTOPHER O'RILEY, piano
Grieg: Piano Concerto
Prokofiev: Lieutenant Kijé Suite
Borodin: Symphony No. 2
Media Sponsor: K-MOZART 105.1 FM
Thursday, September 4, 8 PM
Hollywood Bowl (2301 N. Highland Avenue)
LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC
MIGUEL HARTH-BEDOYA, conductor
ELISSA JOHNSTON, soprano
Dvorák: Symphony No. 9, "New World"
Barber: Knoxville: Summer of 1915
Gershwin: Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture
Sponsored by United Airlines; Media Sponsor: K-MOZART 105.1 FM
Programs and artists subject to change.
Tickets ($1 - $77) are on sale now at the Hollywood Bowl box office, by calling Ticketmaster at 213.480.3232, at all Ticketmaster outlets (Robinsons May, Tower Records and Ritmo Latino locations), or online at hollywoodbowl.com. Groups of 12 or more may be eligible for a 20% discount, subject to availability; call 323.850.2050 for further details. For general information or to request a brochure, call 323.850.2000.
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Elizabeth Hinckley, 323.850.2047; Rachelle Roe, 323.850.2032