Cleveland Orchestra with Conductor Franz Welser-Möst and Jeffrey Siegel’s Keyboard Conversations® at the Kimmel Center this February
JANUARY 8, 2009
Franz Welser-Möst
In February, the Kimmel Center offers audiences the opportunity to experience one of the world’s top 10 orchestras, according to the U.K.’s Gramophone magazine (November 2008), as well as an intimate concert-with-commentary revealing nuances behind musical masterpieces for novice and learned classical music fans.
- Acclaimed pianist and host Jeffrey Siegel's Keyboard Conversations® illuminate miniature masterpieces by Mendelssohn, Grieg, Brahms and others in The Longevity of the Short Piece (February 2, 2009).
- The Cleveland Orchestra returns to Philadelphia with Conductor Franz Welser-Möst for a program of works by Mozart and Shostakovich (February 8, 2009).
Tickets can be purchased by calling 215-893-1999, online at www.kimmelcenter.org, or at the Kimmel Center box office open daily from 10am to 6pm and later on performance evenings. (Additional fees may apply.) For group sales call 215-790-5883.
A limited number of $10 tickets are available for every Kimmel Center Presents performance at the Kimmel Center. Tickets go on sale the day of the event and can be purchased at the Kimmel Center box office beginning at 5:30pm for an evening curtain time and 11:30am for matinees. Limit one ticket per person.
Keyboard Conversations® with Jeffrey Siegel
The Longevity of the Short Piece
Monday, February 2, 2009 at 7:30pm
Perelman Theater
Price: $30
"Insightful and poetically interpreted"
World-class pianist Jeffrey Siegel returns to the Kimmel Center to host his educational concerts-with-commentary series, Keyboard Conversations®, with a program entitled The Longevity of the Short Piece on Monday, February 2, 2009 at 7:30pm in Perelman Theater. Siegel will perform a repertoire of short pieces, including selections from Mendelssohn, Grieg, Brahms, Stravinsky, Sibelius, Granados and Ginastera, followed by a question and answer session.
An ongoing series for more than 25 years, Keyboard Conversations’® unique concert-plus-commentary format allows both newcomers and advanced classical music lovers the opportunity to develop a richer understanding and appreciation for celebrated classical composers. Presented in over 25 cities from New York to Los Angeles, Keyboard Conversations® was presented internationally for the first time at the prestigious Wigmore Hall in London in October 2008.
Jeffrey Siegel has been a soloist with the world's great orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Moscow State Symphony, all the major London orchestras, the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra and many others. As a conductor, he has collaborated with luminaries such as Claudio Abbado, Pierre Boulez, Charles Dutoit, Neeme Järvi, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson Thomas and David Zinman, among others. He has led the Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and Saint Louis Symphony Orchestras, The Minnesota Orchestra and The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, as well as orchestras in France, Scandinavia and South America.
In June 2006, Siegel released four CDs of Keyboard Conversations®: Mozart and Friends, The Power and Passion of Beethoven, The Romanticism of the Russian Soul and The Romance of the Piano (Random House Audio Publishing Group).
Keyboard Conversations® Program:
MENDELSSOHN: Songs without Words
Venetian Boat Song, Op. 30, No. 6
Duet, Op. 38, No. 6
Hunting Song, Op. 19, No. 3
GRIEG: Lyric Pieces
Little Bird, Op. 43, No. 4
Shepherd Boy, Op. 54, No. 1
Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, Op. 65, No. 6
BRAHMS: Rhapsody in E-flat major, Op. 119, No. 4
STRAVINSKY: Circus Polka
SIBELIUS: Evergreen, Op. 75, No. 5
GRANADOS: Spanish Dance, No. 5
GINASTERA: Sonata No. 1, Op. 22
Ruvido ed ostinato
Questions and Answers
This concert is the second of three concerts in Jeffrey Siegel’s Keyboard Conversations® series scheduled for the Kimmel Center Presents 2008-09 season. The next concert in the series will be Musical Pictures on Monday, April 13, 2009 at 7:30pm in Perelman Theater.
Cleveland Orchestra
Franz Welser-Möst, conductor
Sunday, February 8, 2009 at 3pm
Verizon Hall
Price: $33-$115
"The Cleveland Orchestra…remains a magnificent ensemble, with a
sound so immaculately blended that it seems to emanate from a single
shared musical impulse"
The Cleveland Orchestra returns to Philadelphia for the first time in six years with Conductor Franz Welser-Möst on Sunday, February 8, 2009 at 3pm in Verizon Hall. Under Welser-Möst’s direction, the Orchestra has toured extensively to critical acclaim, and has become one of the most sought-after performing ensembles in the world. His long-term commitment to the Orchestra was recently extended into 2018, the orchestra’s centennial year. Maestro Welser-Möst leads the Orchestra through a program of Mozart’s passionate Symphony No. 25 in G Minor and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 in C Major, Op. 60, "Leningrad," written while the city was under siege by the Nazis in 1941.
Franz Welser-Möst, in his seventh year as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra, has performed a wide ranging repertoire including new works that span four centuries, 10 world premieres and 12 U.S. premieres. The Austrian born conductor has led the Cleveland Orchestra through the launch of biennial residencies at Vienna’s Musikverein in 2003; regular residencies with the Lucerne Festival, including the Roche commissioning project that began in 2004; and annual residencies in Miami, which began in 2007.
In the summer of 2008, Welser-Möst led the Cleveland Orchestra in an unprecedented extended residency at the Salzburg Festival, performing a new production of Dvorák’s Rusalka and a number of orchestral programs. In 2007, both the first commercially available DVD, of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 5, and the first commercial CD, of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, by the Cleveland Orchestra with Welser-Möst were released to critical acclaim. Welser-Möst will assume the position of general music director of the Vienna State Opera, beginning in 2010.
Founded in 1918 under the direction of Russian-American conductor Nikolai Sokoloff, the Cleveland Orchestra made its permanent home in Severance Hall in Cleveland’s University Circle area in 1932. Throughout its history, the Orchestra has been led by some of the world’s most preeminent conductors, including Artur Rodzinski, Erich Leinsdorf, George Szell, Pierre Boulez, Lorin Maazel and Christoph von Dohnanyi. Under the helm of Welser-Möst since 2002, the Orchestra has maintained a steadfast commitment to its long-standing traditions of artistic excellence, educational outreach and community service. In January 2007, the Orchestra began a 10-year residency project at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County in Miami, Florida. Upcoming ventures include the commissioning of substantial works for the centennial season from five composers: Marc-André Dalbavie, Osvaldo Golijov, H K Gruber, Matthias Pintscher and Kaija Saariaho. A production of Mozart’s Le nozze di figaro in March 2009 will take place in Severance Hall in collaboration with Zurich Opera, with Mozart’s Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni to follow in 2010 and 2011.
Cleveland Orchestra Program:
MOZART: Symphony No. 25 in G Minor
SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 7 in C Major, Op. 60 "Leningrad"
Sunday, February 8, 2009 | 1:30pm
Commonwealth Plaza | Free at the Kimmel
TBD
Join us for a free musical performance on the Commonwealth Plaza stage
prior to the ticketed performance by the Cleveland Orchestra in Verizon
Hall.
Sunday, February 8, 2009 | Post-Show
Verizon Hall | Organ Postlude
TBD
This performance will be followed by a free Organ Postlude on the Fred J. Cooper Memorial Organ in Verizon Hall.
Kimmel Center Presents’ 2008/2009 Season is sponsored by Citi. The Great Orchestras on Tour Series is supported by 10 Rittenhouse Square. Additional support is provided by the University of Pennsylvania Health System, American Express, and Interpark. American Airlines is the Official Airline of Kimmel Center Presents. NBC-10 is a media partner for Kimmel Center Presents.
Free in the Plaza programming and subsidized tickets offered to the community and social service groups for $10 are made possible through the Wachovia Gateway to the Arts Community Access Program, supported by a generous grant from the Wachovia Foundation.
The Kimmel Center is the recipient of partnership funding through the nationally recognized PNC "Grow Up Great" initiative, a ten-year, $100 million investment in preparing children for success in school and life. Funding gives support to the Kimmel Center’s early childhood program "Bop and Swing," an arts program for children 1-5 years old, designed to promote an appreciation for American culture.
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