LSO in Jordan Hall
LONGWOOD SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PRESENTS THE NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE OF KANCEHLI’S “STYX” AND SHORE’S “LORD OF THE RINGS” TO SUPPORT AMERICAN EPILEPSY SOCIETY
(BOSTON) – Longwood Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director and Conductor, Jonathan McPhee, announce the first concert of their 2009-2010 season. The December 5th concert will benefit the Dr. Susan Spencer Memorial Epilepsy Research Fund of the American Epilepsy Society
Under the baton of Maestro McPhee, Longwood Symphony Orchestra will take the audience on a musical journey in a program filled with mystery and mythology. Three myths combine to form a mystical evening, the wood sprites flitter throughout Tapiola, Charon floats down the river in Styx, and Howard Shore’s Lord of the Rings pays homage to Tolkien’s trilogy.
The program features Jean Sibelius’ Tapiola, a piece highly regarded for its Romanticism, which portrays a wood spirit of the Finnish pine-forests and Howard Shore’s Lord of the Rings which depicts the dark mysteries of Middle Earth.
The highlight of the evening will be Georgian composer Giya Kancheli’s Styx featuring violist Roger Tapping and the New World Chorale, Holly MacEwen Krafka and John Zielinski, directors. Written for viola solo, chorus and large orchestra, Styx has been hailed as “a masterwork of the 21st century.” The solo viola represents Charon, who ferries souls down the river Styx, between the land of the living and the dead. Styx received its American premiere by the Colorado Symphony in April 2008. This performance will be the work’s New England Premiere.
Through its Healing Art of Music™ program, each Longwood Symphony Orchestra concert is in collaboration with a health care organization. For this concert, LSO partners with the Dr. Susan Spencer Memorial Epilepsy Research Fund established in memory of Dr. Susan Spencer, a former President of the American Epilepsy Society and internationally recognized expert in epilepsy and epilepsy surgery.
Recognized in 2007 by the League of American Orchestras as a model of community engagement for orchestras nationwide, LSO’s Healing Art of Music™ program has partnered with 35 local medical organizations since 1991, helping them raise thousands of dollars, improve care for the medically underserved, and increase community awareness for their cause.
Longwood Symphony Orchestra recently premiered LSO on Call, a series of chamber music concerts in health care settings across Massachusetts, designed to bring music to patients who might not otherwise be able to hear classical music.
WHO: Longwood Symphony Orchestra perform in support of the Dr. Susan Spencer Memorial Epilepsy Research Fund, in a program featuring violist Roger Tapping, and the New World Chorale.
WHAT: Jean Sibelius’ Tapiola, Howard Shore’s Lord of the Rings, and the New England premiere of Giya Kancheli’s Styx.
WHEN: Saturday, December 5, 2009 – 8:00 PM
WHERE: New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall
290 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
TICKETS: Season tickets for Longwood Symphony Orchestra’s concert series are $108-$120, and individual concert tickets range from $20-$40. All tickets are available online at www.longwoodsymphony.org or by phone at 617.667.1527.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
LONGWOOD SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Longwood Symphony Orchestra is a unique ensemble established in 1982 with a mission is to perform concerts of musical excellence and innovation while supporting medically-related nonprofit organizations. Nearly eighty percent of the orchestra’s 120 musicians are health care professionals, including physicians and medical students from Boston University School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Tufts University School of Medicine and U. Mass. Medical School.
Longwood Symphony Orchestra’s musical mission is as unique as its medical mission. Artistic Director Jonathan McPhee leads LSO in four annual concerts that feature a blend of repertoire standards and less-recognized masterpieces and performs at least one Boston premiere each season. LSO has reintroduced Boston audiences to works by American composers Barber, Copland and Dello Joio. In 2009, LSO co-commissioned a new work, Albert Schweitzer Portrait with the words of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the music of Gene Scheer, arranged and adapted by Jonathan McPhee.
Longwood Symphony Orchestra’s three major programs combine music, medicine and service to Heal the Community through Music.
Healing Art of Music™ program: Established in 1991, LSO’s award-winning program is designed to help raise awareness and funds for the community’s medically underserved by partnering with health-related nonprofits. To date, LSO has collaborated with 35 Community Partners, raised over $850,000 and touched the lives of thousands of patients and clients. In 2007, LSO received the Excellence in Community Engagement Award from the League of American Orchestras for this unique program.
LSO on Call is a chamber music outreach initiative that brings music directly to those who can no longer attend concerts. LSO chamber musicians perform monthly concerts in hospital wards, rehabilitation centers, and health care facilities. This program brings healing music to patients, healthcare staff, and to the healer musicians themselves.
LSO Community Conversations is a series of lectures and symposia on the dialogue between the arts and sciences. Topics have included the role of the arts in global AIDS and role of creativity in addressing domestic violence, on International Women’s Day. In 2008, LSO traveled to London for performances and lectures on Innovations in Cancer Care. In 2009, LSO’s “Crossing the Corpus Callosum: Neuroscience, Healing and the Arts” drew experts, artists and physicians from six states and ten academic institutions.
Longwood Symphony Orchestra presents a comprehensive model of artistic vision and service. LSO received the 2007 MetLife Award for Excellence in Community Engagement from the League of American Orchestras and today continues to set an example for community engagement nationwide.
For more information about Longwood Symphony Orchestra, visit our website www.longwoodsymphony.org or call 617-667-1527.
JONATHAN MCPHEE
Named Music Director and Conductor of the Longwood Symphony Orchestra in 2004 and Artistic Director in 2008, Mr. McPhee is also Music Director of the Lexington Symphony Orchestra, Boston Ballet Orchestra, as well as for the Nashua Symphony Orchestra & Chorus in New Hampshire.
Recent guest engagements include the Portland Symphony Orchestra, Plymouth Philharmonic, Youngstown Symphony Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfonica de Tenerife in Spain, and the Lithuanian National Orchestra. Mr. M
cPhee has also appeared with the BBC Scottish Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, the Louisiana Philharmonic, The Hague Philharmonic, Rochester Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Orchestre Colonne (Paris), the National Philharmonic in London, the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Bergen Philharmonic in Norway, among others. Mr. McPhee has conducted for many of the world’s premier dance companies, including the New York City Ballet, The Royal Ballet (England), Martha Graham Dance Company, National Ballet of Canada, and the Australian Ballet. In addition, Mr. McPhee has also conducted opera, appearing with Opera Boston, the American Opera Center in New York, and Boston University Opera, and further extends his diverse repertoire with pops concerts, musical theatre and operetta.
Mr. McPhee’s works as an arranger and composer are in the repertoires of orchestras and ballet companies around the world. His edition of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is the only authorized reduced orchestration of this work. Mr. McPhee’s compositions and arrangements are published by Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. and his edition of Stravinsky’s complete Firebird for Boosey & Hawkes was recently performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra and Baltimore Symphony.
An active educator of both music and ballet, Mr. McPhee is an Artistic Advisor for Young Audiences of Massachusetts and his work with Boston’s WCRB-FM on “Kids’ Classical Hour” resulted in a 1998 Gabriel Award.
Born in Philadelphia, Mr. McPhee received his L.R.A.M. from the London Royal Academy of Music and a B.M. and M.M. from the Juilliard School. While at Juilliard, Mr. McPhee was the recipient of a Naumburg Scholarship in Conducting and English Horn. He has studied with Leonard Brain, David Diamond, Thomas Stacy, Rudolf Kempe, Sixten Ehrling, and participated in master classes with Sir Georg Solti and James Levine at Juilliard.
NEW WORLD CHORALE, Holly MacEwen Krafka & John Zielinski, directors
The New World Chorale is one of the most in-demand choruses in the greater Boston area. The Chorale has performed major works with Longwood Symphony Orchestra, Boston Landmarks Orchestra, Claflin Hill Symphony Orchestra, Rhode Island Philharmonic, and the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra (formerly GBYSO). In May 2006, the New World Chorale was featured with the Boston Ballet in its production of Igor Stravinsky’s Les Noces at the Wang Theatre in Boston. In summer 2006, the New World Chorale performed in concerts at the Hatch Shell on the Charles River Esplanade with both the Boston Landmarks Orchestra and the Longwood Symphony Orchestra. The Chorale performed again with Boston Landmarks Orchestra at the Hatch Shell in July 2007. In December 2007, the Chorale performed Janacek’s Glagolitic Mass with Longwood Symphony Orchestra. Show-casing its versatility, the Chorale has performed South Pacific in concert and, most recently, The Pirates of Penzance and The Music Man with Claflin Hill Symphony Orchestra, providing the leads and moving choruses from its own membership.
The New World Chorale was founded in 1999 by Holly MacEwen Krafka and John Zielinski with the mission of performing the best American choral music and the goal of performing with many of the finest orchestras in New England. The Chorale’s membership is comprised of some of the Boston area’s most experienced choral singers and soloists who have performed both locally and internationally with the world’s major orchestras.
The Chorale has performed world premieres encompassing a wide range of musical styles. Pieces commissioned and performed include: Opening Day, written for them by local composer Tom Hojnacki to texts about baseball by Bill Littlefield, host of the National Public Radio program “Only A Game”; How Sweet the Sound, an arrangement of hymns and spirituals for chorus and organ by John Zielinski; Mass by Gregory Short for chorus, percussion, and audience participation; and Infelix Ego for organ, percussion, brass quartet, and chorus, also by Mr. Zielinski.
For more information, visit www.newworldchorale.org.
ROGER TAPPING, Viola
Violist Roger Tapping was a member of the Takács Quartet for ten years from 1995, during which time their international career included Beethoven cycles in New York, Paris, London, Sydney, Cleveland and Los Angeles, and Bartok cycles in New York, London, Madrid, Tokyo (for TV), Cleveland, and Pittsburgh. Their recordings for Decca/London, including the complete quartets of Bartok and Beethoven, have won three Gramophone Awards, a Grammy and three more Grammy nominations, three Japan Record Academy Chamber Music Awards, the BBC Music Disc of the Year Award, and the Classical Brits Award for Ensemble Album of the Year. As a member of the quartet, Tapping taught regularly at the Aspen Festival, the Taos Quartet School, and the Guildhall School of Music.
In London, Tapping played in a number of Britain’s leading chamber ensembles, making several highly acclaimed CDs, and touring for the British Council in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Mexico before joining Britain’s longest established quartet, the Allegri Quartet, with whom he played from 1989 to 1995. He taught at the Royal Academy of Music in London, was principal viola of the London Mozart Players, and a member of the English Chamber Orchestra. He was a founding member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and a frequent participant in Sandor Végh’s International Musicians’ Seminar in Cornwall, England.
Tapping gives classes at major schools in America in addition to those where he is on faculty. Current summer festivals include Banff, the Yellow Barn Festival, the Perlman Chamber Music Workshop, and the Tanglewood String Quartet Seminar. He performs both as a recitalist and as a chamber musician, playing regularly as a soloist on WGBH and making frequent guest appearances with quartets from the U.S. and Europe. He was a jury member and recitalist at the 2006 Tertis International Viola Competition, and is on the jury of the 2009 London String Quartet Competition.
Tapping is a member of the Order of the Knight Cross of the Hungarian Republic, holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Nottingham, and is a fellow of the Guildhall School of Music in London.
