The Philharmonic Society of Orange County

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Emanuel Ax Plays Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2

“His greatness, his overwhelming authority as a musician, technician and probing intellect emerges quickly as he plays. Within minutes, we are totally captured by his intensity and pianistic achievement.” – Los Angeles Times (on Emanuel Ax)

IRVINE, CA—The Philharmonic Society of Orange County is pleased to present the Los Angeles Philharmonic on Sunday, March 28, 2010, 3pm, at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Orange County Performing Arts Center, part of Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Led by conductor Lionel Bringuier, the L.A. Philharmonic will perform BERLIOZ: Le corsaire, Op. 21; CHOPIN: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21, with pianist Emanuel Ax; and SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 54. A pre-concert lecture by Rich Capparela will begin at 2pm. This performance is part of the 2009-2010 Donna L. Kendall Classical Series and is sponsored by Harry Winston and Jaguar.

Founded in 1919, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is recognized as one of the leading orchestras in the world. Both locally and internationally, it has “...proved that it belongs among the best in the United States,” said the Berliner Zeitung. Annually performing and presenting hundreds of concerts throughout the year at two outstanding venues—the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the legendary Hollywood Bowl, the Los Angeles Philharmonic demonstrates a breadth and depth of programming unrivaled by other orchestras and cultural institutions, performing music that retains the continuity of tradition while enhancing the symphonic music experience for new audiences.

Winner of the 49th Besançon Young Conductors Competition in 2005, young French conductor Lionel Bringuier is a graduate of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. Mr. Bringuier serves as associate conductor to the Los Angeles Philharmonic as well as chef associé of the Orchestre de Bretagne. He has conducted some of the top orchestras in the world including the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra. The 2009-10 season marks the beginning of his tenure as music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León in Valladolid, Spain. Other highlights include his debut with the Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Grammy Award-winning pianist Emanuel Ax studied piano at the Julliard School and captured public attention in 1974 when he won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. One year later, he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists, and in 1979, he won the Avery Fisher Prize. In recent years, Mr. Ax has developed his interest in chamber music as well music by contemporary composers. He has collaborated with artists such as Cho-Liang Lin, the late Isaac Stern, Jaime Laredo, and Yo-Yo Ma. His recordings with Yo-Yo Ma have earned him multiple Grammy Awards. Highlights of his 2009-2010 season include a tour of Asia with the New York Philharmonic and a tour of Europe with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and James Conlon as well as the Pittsburgh Symphony with Manfred Honeck. In recognition of the bicentenaries of Chopin and Schumann in 2010, Mr. Ax has also commissioned new works from composers John Adams, Peter Lieberson and Osvaldo Golijov.

The Orange County Performing Arts Center, Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, is located at 615 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, CA 92626. Ticket prices are $110, $105, $85, $70, $40, $250 (box seats) and are available at the Philharmonic Society box office at (949) 553-2422, online at www.PhilharmonicSociety.org, and at the Center box office at (714) 556-2787.

A private, post-concert dinner will take place at AnQi immediately following the performance. AnQi is located at Bloomingdales South Coast Plaza.

Valery Gergiev to Conduct Mahler’s 5th

“The gripping performances these musicians from St. Petersburg offered had such intensity, character and insight that it was hard to imagine the music played with more authority.”— New York Times

IRVINE, CA—The Philharmonic Society of Orange County is pleased to present the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra on Wednesday, March 24, 2010, 7pm, at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Orange County Performing Arts Center, part of Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Conductor Valery Gergiev will lead a performance of MAHLER: Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor. A pre-concert lecture by Christopher Russell will begin at 6pm. The evening also marks the fourth presentation of the Philharmonic Society’s 2009-10 Elizabeth & Henry Segerstrom Select Series, presented by Harry Winston and Jaguar. This event is sponsored by the Shanbrom Family Foundation.

Founded in the 18th century during the reign of Peter the Great, the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra is in its 226th season. Under the musical direction of Eduard Napravnik, the orchestra flourished in the latter half of the 19th century and was recognized as one of the finest in Europe. Since 1860, the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra has been housed in St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre, the oldest musical theatre in Russia. During the Soviet era, the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra was renamed the Kirov Orchestra but has reclaimed the Mariinsky name since then. During its long and illustrious history, the orchestra has presented the world premiere of Verdi’s La forza del destino, the first Russian performances of the complete Wagner’s Ring cycle, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger, Parsifal, and of Richard Strauss’ Elektra, Salome, Der Rosenkavalier, and Berg’s Wozzeck.

The Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra also boasts a history of close associations with renowned Russian composers, including world premiere performances of works by Glinka, Borodin, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Khachaturian. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky conducted and premiered his Fifth Symphony, Hamlet fantasy-overture, and Sixth Symphony with the orchestra. Sergei Rachmaninoff was also a frequent conductor of the orchestra, including premieres of his Spring Cantata and the symphonic poem The Bells. The orchestra also premiered music by the young Igor Stravinsky, such as his Scherzo Fantastique and the ballet The Firebird.

Grammy Award-winning conductor Valery Gergiev assumed the position of Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre in 1988, propelling the orchestra into its second “golden age.” He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Dmitri Shostakovich Award, Golden Mask Award, People’s Artist of Russia Award, the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award, Sweden’s Polar Music Prize, Netherlands’s Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion, Japan’s Order of the Rising Sun, Valencia’s Silver Medal, the Herbert von Karajan prize, and France’s Royal Order of the Legion of Honor. Valery Gergiev studied conducting with Ilya Musin at the Leningrad Conservatory and was the winner of the 1977 Herbert von Karajan Conductors’ Competition in Berlin. One year later, he made his Mariinsky Opera debut conducting Prokofiev’s War and Peace. He was made conductor of the World Orchestra for Peace in 1998 and is presently Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. Valery Gergiev is also founder and artistic director of the Stars of the White Nights Festival and New Horizons Festival in St. Petersburg, the Moscow Easter Festival, the Gergiev Rotterdam Festival, the Mikkeli International Festival, and the Red Sea Festival in Eilat, Israel. In 2010, he will conduct the first-ever production of Shostakovich’s The Nose at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

The Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra records on the “Mariinsky Label,” launched May 2009. The label’s first two recordings received five Grammy Nominations, including Best Opera Recording (Shostakovich’s The Nose), Best Classical Album (The Nose), Best Orchestral Performance (Shostakovich’s Symphonies 1 and 15), and nominations for engineering and producer. The orchestra has also released a Tchaikovsky disc of short pieces, Shchedrin “The Enchanted Wanderer,” and Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 and “Variations on a theme of Paganini.” Winter 2010 marks the orchestra’s 15th tour of North America, celebrating works of Berlioz. In fall of 2010, the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra will embark on its 16th tour, commemorating the centennial of Gustav Mahler’s death.

The Orange County Performing Arts Center, Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, is located at 615 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, CA 92626. Ticket prices are $98, $94, $75, $65, $55, $45, $30, $250 (box seats) and are available at the Philharmonic Society box office at (949) 553-2422, online at www.PhilharmonicSociety.org, and at the Center box office at (714) 556-2787.

Daedalus String Quartet to Perform Brahms String Sextet in Orange County Debut

IRVINE, CA—The Philharmonic Society of Orange County is pleased to present the Orange County debut of the Daedalus String Quartet on Monday, March 15, 2010, 8pm, at the Irvine Barclay Theatre with a performance of Mozart: String Quartet No. 22 in B-flat major, K. 589; Tower: Night Fields (1994); and Brahms: String Sextet No. 2 in G major, Op. 36.

Founded in 2000, the Daedalus String Quartet consists of sibling violinists Kyu-Young Kim and Min-Young Kim, violist Jessica Thompson, and cellist Raman Ramakrishnan. The quartet has performed at many of the world’s leading musical venues, including Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center, the Library of Congress, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Cité de la Musique in Paris.

The award-winning members of the Daedalus Quartet hold degrees from the Juilliard School, Curtis Institute, Cleveland Institute, and Harvard University. The quartet has also partnered with leading classical music and education institutions across the United States. The quartet is associated with Carnegie Hall through the European Concert Hall Organization (ECHO) Rising Stars program. The Lincoln Center appointed the quartet as the Chamber Music Society Two quartet for 2005-2007. Winner of Lincoln Center’s 2007 Martin E. Segal Award, the quartet has been Quartet-in-Residence at Columbia University since 2005 and at the University of Pennsylvania since 2006. The Daedalus String Quartet is currently finishing a three-year residency in Suffolk County, Long Island, which was funded by their winning of Chamber Music America’s Guarneri String Quartet Award.

The Daedalus String Quartet’s 2009-10 season includes a tour across the United States with one outside appearance at the Storioni Music Festival in Eindhoven, Holland. Highlights include the world premiere of Lawrence Dillon’s String Quartet No. 4.

The Irvine Barclay Theatre is located at 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine, CA 92612. Ticket prices are $40, $35, $30 and are available at the Philharmonic Society box office at (949) 553-2422, online at www.PhilharmonicSociety.org, and at the Irvine Barclay box office at (949) 854-4646.

MOSCOW STATE RADIO ORCHESTRA PERFORMS MUSIC OF CHERISHED RUSSIAN COMPOSERS TCHAIKOVSKY, RACHMANINOFF, AND RIMSKY-KORSAKOV

IRVINE, CA—The Philharmonic Society presents the Moscow State Radio Orchestra on Wednesday, March 10, 2009, 8pm, at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, at Segerstrom Center for the Arts. It last performed in Orange County at the Irvine Barclay Theatre in 2004, performing one concert of “All Rachmaninoff” and another of “All Tchaikovsky.” This performance’s repertoire will feature great Romantic pieces composed by an assortment of cherished Russian composers. Led by conductor Robert Cole, the evening’s program includes Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy; Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43, with pianist Alexander Sinchuk; Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33, with cellist Julian Schwarz; and Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade, Op. 35. There will be a pre-concert lecture by Dr. Burton Karson at 7pm. This performance is part of the Donna L. Kendall Classical Series.

Founded in 1978, the function of the Moscow State Radio Orchestra was to broadcast to and share with all of Russia the rich collection of symphonic repertoire of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, which it did on a weekly basis. Two years later, the orchestra began a major subscription series in Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall and Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, and it continues to do so with subscription concerts such as “Young Stars of Russia.” These concerts are broadcast on multiple radio stations. The orchestra has performed at the Kremlin Palace with the Moscow Classical Ballet in performance of The Nutcracker, Giselle, Don Quixote, Cinderella, and Firebird. The Moscow State Radio Orchestra follows the European music tradition and does not have a permanent chief conductor. Instead, the orchestra’s music director invites maestros from Russia and abroad in order to facilitate the continuing development and mastery of the musicians. The Moscow State Radio Orchestra’s 2009-2010 season includes a coast-to-coast tour of the United States.

Conductor Robert Cole graduated from the University of Southern California School of Music. He studied conducting with Richard Lert in California, with Leonard Bernstein and Leon Barzin at the Tanglewood Music Center, and with Hans Swarowsky in Europe. Previously the Associate Conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Music Director and Executive Director of the Ballet Society of Los Angeles, Mr. Cole has recently appeared as conductor with the Mark Morris Dance Group in Berkeley, California, as well as at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. He has also conducted concerts for the Lake Tahoe Summer Music Festival in Lake Tahoe, California. Since 1986, Mr. Cole has served as Director of Cal Performances at the University of California at Berkeley, and he also holds the position of General Director of the Berkeley Festival & Exhibition, an international festival of early music which he founded in 1990. Prior to his appointment in Berkeley, Mr. Cole was director of several performing arts centers in New York. In 1995, Mr. Cole was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the Government of France. In January 2004, Robert Cole was invited and consequently became the principal guest conductor of the Perm State Tchaikovsky Opera and Ballet Theater in Perm City of Russia.

Russian pianist Alexander Sinchuk, winner of the Fourth Rachmaninoff Piano Competition in Moscow, began piano lessons at the age of seven in the Children’s Art School under Elena Kulikova. In 2000, Mr. Sinchuk began studying the piano with Izolda Zemskova, Honored Artist of Russia and Professor of the Far East Academy of Arts in Russia. Under Professor Zemskova’s tutelage, Mr. Sinchuk trained for his first significant piano competition and in March of 2002 entered and won First Prize in the International Competition for Pianists in Vladivostok, Russia. As a student at the Central Music School at the Moscow P.I. Tchaikovsky State Conservatory of Music, Mr. Sinchuk entered and won several competitions, including First Place Prize at the Fifth International competition named after legendary pianist Maria Yudina in St. Petersburg, Russia; First Prize (Grand-Prix) at the international competition “The Art of the 21st Century” in Kiev, Ukraine; First Prize at the Second All-Russia Open Competition for Young Musicians in Hanty-Mansijsk; and First Prize (Grand Prix) at the 6th International Piano Competition named after K.N. Igumnov. Since his graduation from the Central Music School in 2006, Mr. Sinchuk has performed in numerous countries, including Japan, Korea, Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Bulgaria, England, and the United States.

Eighteen-year-old cellist Julian Schwarz is a Seattle native born into a musical family. He began his piano lessons at the age of five and his cello lessons at six. He made his orchestral debut at the age of 11 playing the Saint-Saëns Concerto No. 1 with the Seattle Symphony with his father, Music Director Gerard Schwarz, on the podium. Since then he has appeared as soloist with many of the Seattle-area orchestras, including the Bellevue Philharmonic, Philharmonia Northwest, as well as the Port Angeles, Eastern and Sammamish symphonies. In both 2007 and 2008, Mr. Schwarz won the highly regarded Northwest Sinfonietta Youth Concerto Competition. The resulting performances as soloist with Music Director Christophe Chagnard led to his appointment as assistant conductor under Chagnard with Seattle’s Lake Union Civic Orchestra, with which he has conducted Borodin’s Second Symphony and Dukas’ Sorcerer’s Apprentice at Seattle’s Town Hall. In summer 2009, he was the “Featured Young Artist” at both the Seattle Chamber Music Festival and the Cape Cod Music Festival. He has been invited to attend and perform at the prestigious Verbier Festival in Switzerland. As a recitalist, he has appeared at High Point University, the Tacoma Art Museum, the University of Washington, and Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall. Mr. Schwarz started attending the Colburn School in the fall of 2009. Recent and upcoming appearances include performances with the Greensboro (NC) Symphony, Lake Union Civic Orchestra, San Diego’s Tifereth Israel Orchestra, and return engagements with the Seattle Symphony and Port Angeles Symphony.

The Orange County Performing Arts Center, Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, is located at 615 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, CA 92626. Ticket prices are $85, $80, $70, $60, $50, $40, $30, $250 (box seats) and are available at the Philharmonic Society box office at (949) 553-2422, online at www.PhilharmonicSociety.org, and at the Center box office at (714) 556-2787.