WORLD PREMIERE BY THE AMERICAN SYMPHONY CHAMBER ORCHESTRA ON FEBRUARY 11 AND 12 AT THE BARD-VASSAR CONCERTS Featuring the Premiere of Richard Wilson's Intimations for piano and orchestra as well as works by Mozart and Mendelssohn
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—The American Symphony Chamber Orchestra (ASCO), presented by The Bard Center, features the world premiere performance of Richard Wilson's Intimations for piano and orchestra during the Bard-Vassar concerts on Friday, February 11, at Olin Hall, Bard College, and Saturday, February 12, at Skinner Hall, Vassar College, under the direction of Maestro Leon Botstein. The concerts also feature music of Mendelssohn and Mozart. They begin at 8:00 p.m., with preconcert talks at 7:00 p.m.
Works to be performed during the concerts in addition to Wilson's Intimations are Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 56, (Scottish); and Mozart’s Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466.
"A terrific pianist," Richard Dyer wrote in the Boston Globe about featured composer and soloist Richard Wilson. Wilson is the composer of more than seventy works in many genres, including opera. He has received such recognition as the Hinrichsen Award (from the American Academy of Arts and Letters), the Stoeger Prize (from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center), the Cleveland Arts Prize (from the Women's City Club of Cleveland), and a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. Recent commissions have come from Chamber Music America, the Chicago Chamber Musicians, and the Koussevitsky Foundation. Wilson’s orchestral works have been performed by the San Francisco Symphony, London Philharmonic, American Symphony, Pro-Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, Orquesta Sinfonica de Colombia, Residentie Orkest of The Hague, and Hudson Valley Philharmonic.
This spring Albany Records will release a CD of Wilson's complete choral music, conducted by William Appling. In February Koch International Classics will issue a disc that includes Wilson’s Symphony No. 1 and three additional chamber works. Already available on CRI are his piano concerto, with Blanca Uribe, and bassoon concerto, with Robert Wagner, in performances by the Pro-Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, Leon Botstein conducting, as well as all-Wilson discs of chamber music on both Albany and CRI.
As a pianist, Wilson has performed as concerto soloist with the Residentie Orkest of The Hague, Hudson Valley Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, and American Symphony Chamber Orchestra, with which he is making his fourth appearance. The program’s Mozart concerto is the ninth he has performed with Leon Botstein. Recent chamber music appearances have been with Rolf Schulte and Jeffrey Lang in chamber music, and with Blanca Uribe in two-piano concerts.
A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard College, Wilson holds the Mary Conover Mellon Chair in Music at Vassar. He is also composer-in-residence with the American Symphony Orchestra, for which he gives preconcert talks.
Leon Botstein
is music director of ASCO, coartistic director and conductor of the Bard Music Festival, music director of the American Symphony Orchestra, and president of Bard College. He is editor of The Musical Quarterly and has published several books, including The Compleat Brahms and Jefferson’s Children: Education and the Promise of American Culture.The third and final concert of the 1999–2000 series takes place on Friday, May 5, at Bard and Saturday, May 6, at Vassar. The program will include Alexander Tcherepnin’s Serenade in D Major for String Orchestra, Op. 97; Louis Spohr’s Concerto No. 2 in B Minor, Op. 88, featuring violinists Erica Kiesewetter and Eric Wyrick; and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36.
Single-concert tickets are $15, senior and students $10 at the door. For further information about the ASCO Bard-Vassar concerts, call 914-758-7425.
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