London Symphony Orchestra Living Music

Sunday 7 June 2015 7.30pm Barbican Hall

LSO INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL JAMES EHNES

Bartók Divertimento for Strings Korngold Violin Concerto INTERVAL Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances

London’s Symphony Orchestra Marin Alsop conductor James Ehnes violin

Concert finishes approx 9.30pm

The LSO International Violin Festival is generously supported by Jonathan Moulds CBE

International Violin Festival Media Partner

07-06 Alsop.indd 1 5/29/2015 1:11:02 PM 2 Welcome 7 June 2015

Welcome Living Music Kathryn McDowell In Brief

This evening we are delighted to welcome conductor THE LSO AT THE BBC PROMS Marin Alsop, who last worked with the Orchestra in 2011. Tonight she returns to conduct a programme The LSO returns to the BBC Proms this summer exploring the music of three of the best-known with Principal Conductor for a concert expatriate composers of the 20th century: Bartók, on 28 July showcasing all five of Prokofiev’s Korngold and Rachmaninov. concertos. Joining the Orchestra on stage at the Royal Albert Hall will be soloists , Following Bartók’s folk-inflected Divertimento, a Sergei Babayan and Alexei Volodin. virtuosic work showcasing the LSO’s string section, violinist James Ehnes, a regular collaborator with bbc.co.uk/proms both the LSO and Marin Alsop, joins the Orchestra for Korngold’s lyrical Violin Concerto. This performance forms part of the LSO International Violin Festival, BAFTA TV AWARD: WORLD WAR I a three-month celebration of the violin with some REMEMBERED FROM THE BATTLEFIELD of the world’s greatest soloists, which will also see James Ehnes feature in a BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime An event that featured a collaboration between the Concert at LSO St Luke’s on 11 June. I would like to LSO and the has won a BAFTA take this opportunity to thank Jonathan Moulds for Award. Members of the two orchestras, conducted his generous support of the Festival. by Sir , were brought together to record the music played at the St Symphorien A very warm welcome to the retired LSO players Military Cemetery in in August 2014. The and their guests who join us tonight for their annual event, which also featured members of the London reunion. We are always delighted to see so many Symphony Chorus and LSO Choral Director Simon members of the LSO from years gone by, and are Halsey, took place 100 years after the declaration very pleased that they have this opportunity to of World War I, and was broadcast worldwide. hear the Orchestra perform.

I hope you enjoy tonight’s concert and will join BBC RADIO 3 LUNCHTIME CONCERTS us again soon. On 10 June, , the Orchestra’s Conductor Laureate, conducts a BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concerts are a chance to performance of his Violin Concerto, joined by hear the world’s finest musicians in the intimate soloist Anne-Sophie Mutter, the work’s dedicatee. setting of the LSO St Luke’s Jerwood Hall. Our current series of concerts, part of the LSO International Violin Festival, features performances by James Ehnes, Veronika Eberle and Nicola Benedetti. Visit our website to browse listings.

Kathryn McDowell CBE DL lso.co.uk/lunchtimeconcerts Managing Director

07-06 Alsop.indd 2 5/29/2015 1:11:03 PM lso.co.uk LSO International Violin Festival 3

Coming soon LSO International Violin Festival

Bell’s big sound is consistently beautiful, round, focused and unfailingly in tune.

The Washington Post on Joshua Bell

ALINA IBRAGIMOVA JOSHUA BELL THE STRAD SUNDAY BBC RADIO 3 Sun 14 Jun 2015 7.30pm Sun 28 Jun 2015 7.30pm Sun 28 Jun 2015 LUNCHTIME CONCERTS

Mozart Violin Concerto No 3 Sibelius Violin Concerto Photographic Exhibition James Ehnes Mahler Symphony No 1 (‘Titan’) Berlioz Symphonie fantastique 3–5.30pm, Fountain Room Thu 11 Jun 2015 1pm, LSO St Luke’s

Bernard Haitink conductor Pablo Heras-Casado conductor Panel Discussion: Making Veronika Eberle Alina Ibragimova violin Joshua Bell violin Instrument Lessons Fun for Kids Thu 18 Jun 2015 1pm, LSO St Luke’s 6pm, Barbican Hall Nicola Benedetti Free entry, no ticket required Thu 25 Jun 2015 1pm, LSO St Luke’s

020 7638 8891

The LSO International Violin Festival is generously supported by Jonathan Moulds CBE International Violin Festival Media Partner lso.co.uk/violinfestival

07-06 Alsop.indd 3 5/29/2015 1:11:04 PM 4 Programme Notes 7 June 2015

Béla Bartók (1881–1945) Divertimento for Strings Sz 113 (1939)

1 ALLEGRO MA NON TROPPO was unaware of the momentous political upheaval 2 MOLTO ADAGIO that would affect his life so dramatically. 3 ALLEGRO ASSAI After the Divertimento’s premiere in Basle on PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER Bartók’s Divertimento was one of the last works 11 June 1940, a critic wrote: ‘Thinking back to the WENDY THOMPSON he wrote before leaving for exile in the US. concert, it now seems unreal and ghostly. Will the Like the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste, creative forces that stirred here be able to survive it was written for the influential Swiss conductor against the raging forces of annihilation, the violence MARIN ALSOP INTRODUCES and patron of contemporary music Paul Sacher, and that leads to total extermination of life?’ Within four TONIGHT’S CONCERT his Basle Chamber Orchestra. The list of Sacher’s months, Bartók had left Europe for the safety of the commissions, apart from Bartók’s pieces, eventually US. He never returned. The three pieces in this concert included Strauss’ Metamorphosen and Stravinsky’s are tour-de-force works that will Concerto in D, alongside works by Honegger, Henze, For a piece written in such troubled times, the highlight the LSO’s fabulous Malipiero, Britten and Tippett, among others. Divertimento at first seems unusually buoyant and musicians and their extraordinary light-hearted. Bartók announced that he was thinking virtuosity. But the works are linked Bartók had become a vigorous and vocal opponent of ‘some kind of concerto grosso’, and the scoring on many other levels: all three of fascism during the 1930s, and by 1938 he was pits a solo against the broad mass of pieces were written in the years seriously considering emigration. But he had a frail, strings, rather in the 18th-century manner. But there around World War II by composers elderly mother to look after in Budapest, and he the resemblance ends. The Divertimento is a highly who had emigrated, or would was clearly torn between his desire to ‘stay at home original work in his own unique idiom, and is in no emigrate, to the US. and help matters as much as possible’ and his fear sense a neo-Classical pastiche. that, by staying on, he would be perceived as tacitly Bartók’s Divertimento opens the condoning Nazi cultural and social policies. Then, in The first movement is a sonata-form structure in programme, featuring the LSO November 1938, he received Sacher’s commission, light, carefree mood; the second, a sombre Adagio in strings alone in a concerto-grosso together with the generous offer of the loan of a four sections (of which the first and last correspond for the 20th century. Korngold’s chalet in the Swiss mountains, where he could in Bartók’s favourite arch form), while the finale is a brilliant Violin Concerto follows, compose in peace. playful rondo that effortlessly incorporates a double incorporating themes from a fugue at its heart. number of his groundbreaking After a frenetic round of international concert tours film scores. The programme and folk-music collecting in the first half of 1939, closes with Rachmaninov’s Bartók finally accepted Sacher’s invitation. He spent Symphonic Dances, the final piece about a month in Switzerland, feeling like ‘a musician Rachmaninov wrote before his of olden times, the invited guest of a patron of the death in 1943. It is a fantastic arts’. In mid-August he reported to his family in piece filled with brilliant orchestral Budapest that work on the new Divertimento had colours and melodic invention. gone well, and he had finished the piece in just 15 days. Such was his intense concentration that when Sacher went to tell him of the outbreak of war, he found Bartók so utterly absorbed in his work that he

07-06 Alsop.indd 4 5/29/2015 1:11:04 PM lso.co.uk Composer Profiles 5

Béla Bartók Composer Profile Composer Profile

Born in 1881 in , Bartók Erich Wolfgang Korngold, like so began piano lessons with his many European composers, found mother at the age of five. He refuge from the Nazis by settling studied piano and composition in Hollywood during the 1930s at the Royal Academy of Music and 40s. As a child he had been in Budapest, where he created a one of the most gifted prodigy number of works echoing the composers that there has ever style of Brahms and . been. Mahler proclaimed him a genius when he was just nine After graduating he discovered years old; he was hailed as ‘the Austro-Hungarian and Slavic new Mozart’ by Ernest Newman folk music, travelling extensively and admired by Richard Strauss, with his friend Zoltán Kodály who expressed feelings of awe at and recording countless ethnic his youthful genius. Korngold was songs and dances which began a pupil of Alexander Zemlinsky to influence his own compositions. and by his 17th birthday he had Kodály also introduced him to the works of Debussy in 1907, the year in produced a string of amazingly mature chamber and symphonic works. which he became Professor of Piano at the Budapest Conservatory. His music was widely performed by the greatest artists of the Bartók established his mature style with such scores as the ballet time including , Arthur Nikisch, Wilhelm Furtwängler, The Miraculous Mandarin and his opera Duke Bluebeard’s Castle. and Sir . Sibelius called him ‘a young eagle!’ He revived his career as a concert pianist in 1927 when he gave while Puccini said of him, ‘He has so much talent – he could easily the premiere of his First Piano Concerto in Mannheim. give us half and still have enough left for himself!’ In the 1920s his success peaked with his two operas Die tote Stadt and Das Wunder Bartók detested the rise of fascism and in October 1940 he der Heliane as well as a Piano Concerto for Left Hand and some quit Budapest and travelled to the US. At first he concentrated exquisite orchestral Lieder. on ethno-musicological research, but eventually returned to composition and created a significant group of ‘American’ works In the 1930s, political events interrupted Korngold’s brilliant career and, including the Concerto for Orchestra and his Third Piano Concerto. exiled in Hollywood, he supported himself by writing some of the finest film music ever written. Indeed, his pioneering work in that medium His character was distinguished by a firm, almost stubborn, refusal was so influential and successful it overshadowed his mainstream to compromise or be diverted from his musical instincts by money achievements, and contributed to his subsequent post-war neglect. or position. Throughout his working life, Bartók collected, transcribed and annotated the folk-songs of many countries, a commitment Korngold died in 1957, believing himself forgotten and neglected. that brought little financial return or recognition but one which he However, in recent years his concert and stage works have seen a regarded as his most important contribution to music. considerable resurgence in popularity.

Composer Profile © Andrew Stewart Composer Profile © Brendan G Carroll

07-06 Alsop.indd 5 5/29/2015 1:11:04 PM 6 Programme Notes 7 June 2015

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957) Violin Concerto in D major Op 35 (1945)

1 MODERATO NOBILE Both of the main themes of the first movement 2 ROMANCE: ANDANTE owe their origins to film scores. The soaring violin 3 ALLEGRO ASSAI VIVACE solo, climbing upwards in fourths and fifths which opens the concerto, was taken from the Errol Flynn JAMES EHNES VIOLIN feature Another Dawn (1937), while the entrancing second theme originally accompanied a love scene PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER The Czech composer Erich Korngold arrived in William Dieterle’s 1939 movie Juarez. These two WENDY THOMPSON in California in 1934, around the same time as themes are contrasted with faster, more playful Schoenberg. In 1928, he and Schoenberg had been passage work. named in a Viennese newspaper poll as the two KORNGOLD’S FILM SCORES greatest living composers. But although they were The lyrical principal theme of the central Romance, Korngold treated his music for film, companions in exile in the US, their musical paths first heard on solo and quickly adopted by in his own words, as ‘opera without diverged widely – Schoenberg’s music becoming the violin, was originally used in the Oscar-winning singing’, associating characters, ever more abstruse and introverted, while Korngold score for Anthony Adverse (1936), but in the middle emotions and places with individually remained firmly in the Romantic tradition, becoming section Korngold creates an unearthly effect by composed leitmotifs (a technique a highly successful, Oscar-winning composer of combining the timbres of muted violin and celeste, developed by Wagner). These film scores for Hollywood. After World War II he and the movement ends with an upward-climbing leitmoitifs were then woven into returned to orchestral music, beginning with the whole-tone scale. The virtuosic Rondo finale ornately orchestrated, melody- 1945 Violin Concerto, but themes from his film scores contrasts a playful dance-like theme with a down- driven textures in a Romantic idiom often permeate the texture of his ‘pure’ music. to-earth, folk-like second theme borrowed from reminiscent of Liszt and Richard Korngold’s 1937 score for Mark Twain’s The Prince Strauss. His intention was that the He was persuaded to write the concerto – his and the Pauper, ending with a fast and furious coda. music he composed for film would best-known and most popular piece – by his fellow be able to transition seamlessly exile, the Polish violinist Bronisław Huberman. It from screen to concert hall. Listen to was, however, , another Californian- themes from Korngold’s film scores based émigré, who premiered the Concerto with at lso.co.uk/korngold. the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Golschmann on 15 February 1947. A decade earlier, Heifetz had rejected Schoenberg’s uncompromising new Violin Concerto as unplayable, but his Romantic INTERVAL – 20 minutes sensibility was eminently suited to Korngold’s piece. There are bars on all levels of the Concert Hall; ice cream The Concerto is written in the openly emotional style can be bought at the stands on Stalls and Circle level. of late 19th-century Vienna, where both composer and violinist had their roots, and it is scored for a Why not tweet us your thoughts on the first half of the huge and colourful orchestra. Korngold dedicated performance @londonsymphony, or come and talk to the piece to Mahler’s widow, Alma. LSO staff at the Information Desk on the Circle level?

07-06 Alsop.indd 6 5/29/2015 1:11:05 PM lso.co.uk LSO International Violin Festival 7

Artist Focus James Ehnes

1 MOVEMENT ONE 2 MOVEMENT TWO [The Korngold Concerto]3 isMOVEMENT a THREE

wonderfully rewarding pieceNAME toNAME INSTRUMENT play, with beautiful melodies, Programme note body. great harmonic flavour, and plenty of virtuosic fireworks.If note goes over a spread.

PROGRAMME NOTE AUTHOR Last paragraph. PlayingLINDSAY KEMP with is thea senior LSO is always a joyproducer and for an BBC honour. Radio 3, including Working with suchprogramming great lunchtime musicians concerts inspires from LSO St Luke’s, Artistic Director meof the to Lufthansa be at Festival my best,of and always seemsBaroque Music, like and an a regularopportunity for contributor to Gramophone magazine. something very special.

LSO INTERNATIONAL VIOLIN James Ehnes plays the 1715 ‘Marsick’ Stradivari Ehnes has been playing the violin since September FESTIVAL: FIND OUT MORE violin, an outstanding instrument from the peak 1999. ‘It’s not an easy fiddle to play, at least not year of ’s ‘golden period’. The the way I prefer it to be set up,’ he says. ‘It’s a very Get to know the soloists in the violin briefly belonged to the Belgian violinist and healthy and stable instrument, but it is extremely LSO International Violin Festival composer Martin Pierre Marsick (1847–1924), who sensitive, and the way I like it to be adjusted requires and find out more about their owned it before running into financial difficulties, it to be played in a particular way.‘ instruments on our website, and it subsequently found its way to Soviet Russia. featuring in-depth profiles, He explains: ‘When my violin is set up the way I interviews, live-streamed artist Ehnes was introduced to the instrument in November like, it can fight you if you’re not playing well – even conversations and more. 1996 by the US-based violinist and dealer Alexander slightly out of tune chords don’t ring, and there’s a Sobolevsky. ‘It was a leap of faith on his part,’ he told decent amount of resistance that requires a lot of lso.co.uk/violinfestival The Strad in 2014. ‘I was only 20 at the time, but he bow control. It would probably be uncomfortable felt I needed to see this violin.’ for an amateur, but the tonal variety and range of dynamics that are available are really inspiring.’

07-06 Alsop.indd 7 5/29/2015 1:11:05 PM 8 Programme Notes 7 June 2015

Sergei Rachmaninov (1873–1943) Symphonic Dances Op 45 (1940)

1 NON ALLEGRO Rachmaninov was usually reluctant to talk about his 2 ANDANTE CON MOTO: TEMPO DI VALSE music, and so we know almost nothing about the 3 LENTO ASSAI – ALLEGRO VIVACE background to the composition of the Symphonic Dances. We do know that other of his works owe PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER Did Rachmaninov realise that the Symphonic their existence to some visual or literary stimulus – ANDREW HUTH is a musician, Dances would be his last work? Whether he had The Isle of the Dead, for example, or several of the writer and translator who writes such a premonition or not, few composers have Études-tableaux for solo piano, and it is highly likely extensively on French, Russian and ended their careers with such appropriate music, that the composer invested the Symphonic Dances Eastern European music. for the Symphonic Dances contain all that is finest with a poetic and even autobiographical significance in Rachmaninov, representing a compendium of which we can guess at, but which he never divulged. a lifetime’s musical and emotional experience. One clue is perhaps provided by the titles which he suggested for each movement. Since Mikhail Their composition was preceded by a big public Fokine had devised a successful ballet using the retrospective of his triple career as composer, score of the Paganini Rhapsody (Covent Garden pianist and conductor. On 11 August 1939 1939), a further collaboration was now suggested. Rachmaninov gave his last performance in Europe Rachmaninov played the Symphonic Dances to the and shortly afterwards left with his family for the choreographer, and explained that they followed the The DIES IRAE (Day of Wrath) is US, one of many artists driven from Europe by the sequence ‘Midday – Twilight – Midnight’. the 13th-century plainchant setting approach of war. In the following winter season the of a medieval poem, describing the Philadelphia Orchestra gave five all-Rachmaninov The first dance is a three-part structure, with fast biblical day of judgement. concerts in New York to mark the 30th anniversary outer sections. It is marked by an extraordinary and of his American debut (in 1909 he had premiered his at times even eccentric use of the orchestra. After The theme has often been quoted by Third Piano Concerto in New York, first with Walter the stamping opening section, with its use of the composers including Haydn, Berlioz, Damrosch and then with ); piano as an orchestral instrument and piercingly Liszt and Tchaikovsky, most notably Rachmaninov appeared as pianist and conductor. strident woodwind calls, the central section offers perhaps though by Rachmaninov, gently undulating woodwind lines against which for whom the Dies Irae became a In the summer of 1941 he wrote to Eugene Ormandy appears a great Rachmaninov melody given at first recurring musical motif. The theme offering him and the Philadelphia Orchestra the to a solo alto saxophone – an eerie, melancholy appears prominently in many of his first performance of three Fantastic Dances; when sound, unique in his music. major works, including the First, the orchestration was completed two months later, Second and Third Symphonies, the title had been finalised as Symphonic Dances. Towards the end of this first dance a calm spreads The Bells, Rhapsody on a Theme of The work exists in two versions: for large orchestra, over the music, with a broad new theme in the Paganini and the Symphonic Dances. and for two . Rachmaninov, although an strings against a chiming decoration of , piccolo, expert orchestrator, was always anxious to have the piano, harp and bells, a quotation from his ill-fated bowings and articulations of the string parts checked First Symphony, withdrawn (and the score apparently by a professional player, and in this case he enjoyed lost) after its disastrous first and only performance the assistance of no less a violinist than Fritz Kreisler. in 1897. The failure of this work had been a crippling blow to the young composer, who for some years afterwards had been incapable of further

07-06 Alsop.indd 8 5/29/2015 1:11:05 PM lso.co.uk Composer Profile 9

Sergei Rachmaninov Composer Profile

composition. There is no knowing what private ‘Melody is music,’ wrote Rachmaninov, ‘the basis of significance this quotation now had for Rachmaninov music as a whole, since a perfect melody implies at the end of his life. Was it an exorcism, perhaps, and calls into being its own harmonic design.’ The or a recollection of the early love affair that had lain Russian composer, pianist and conductor’s passion behind the Symphony? for melody was central to his work, clearly heard in his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, a brilliant and A snarl from the brass opens the second of the diverse set of variations on a tune by the great 19th- dances. This is a symphonic waltz in the tradition century violinist and composer Niccolò Paganini. of Berlioz, Tchaikovsky and Mahler; and as in movements by those composers, the waltz, that Although the young Sergei’s father squandered most social and sociable of dances, at times takes much of the family inheritance, he at first invested on the character of a danse macabre. The title wisely in his son’s musical education. In 1882 he ‘Twilight’ is perfectly suited to this shadowy music, received a scholarship to study at the St Petersburg haunted by spectres of the past. Conservatory, but further disasters at home hindered his progress and he moved to study at the Moscow In the third dance, the theme from the First Conservatory. Here he proved an outstanding Symphony has a further significance when the first RACHMANINOV on LSO LIVE piano pupil and began to study composition. four notes form the first notes of the Dies irae Rachmaninov’s early works reveal his debt to the plainchant, that spectre of death which haunts so Rachmaninov: music of Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky, although much of Rachmaninov’s music. Once again a three- Symphonic he rapidly forged a personal, richly lyrical musical part structure, the central section is imbued with a Dances language, clearly expressed in his Prelude in C-sharp lingering, fatalistic chromaticism; the outer sections, minor for Piano of 1892. by contrast, contain some of the most dynamic £7.99 music Rachmaninov ever wrote. Another significant His First Symphony of 1897 was savaged by the self-quotation is the appearance of a chant from the Valery Gergiev conductor critics, which caused the composer’s confidence Russian Orthodox liturgy which Rachmaninov had to evaporate. In desperation he sought help from set in his 1915 All-Night Vigil (usually referred to as Available to buy online at Dr Nikolai Dahl, whose hypnotherapy sessions the Vespers). This chant and the Dies irae engage lso.co.uk/lsolive or as a restored Rachmaninov’s self-belief and gave him in what is virtually a life-against-death struggle; digital download on iTunes the will to complete his Second Piano Concerto, and towards the end, Rachmaninov wrote in the widely known through its later use as the soundtrack score the word ‘Alliluya’ (Rachmaninov’s spelling, for the classic film Brief Encounter. Thereafter, his in Latin and not Cyrillic characters). At the end of creative imagination ran free to produce a string of his life, then, and with the last music he composed, unashamedly romantic works divorced from newer Rachmaninov seems finally to have exorcised the musical trends. He left Russia shortly before the ghost that stalks through all his music, summed up October Revolution in 1917, touring as pianist and in the phrase by Pushkin that he had set nearly half conductor and buying properties in Europe and the a century earlier in his opera Aleko: ‘Against fate United States. there is no protection’. Composer Profile © Andrew Stewart

07-06 Alsop.indd 9 5/29/2015 1:11:06 PM 10 Artist Biographies 7 June 2015

Marin Alsop ‘A formidable musician and a powerful communicator.’ Conductor The New York Times

Marin Alsop is an inspiring and powerful voice in (Principal Conductor 2002–8; now Conductor the international music scene, a music director of Emeritus) and Colorado Symphony Orchestra (Music vision and distinction who passionately believes Director 1993–2005; now Music Director Laureate). that ‘music has the power to change lives’. She is recognised across the world for her innovative In September 2013, Marin Alsop made history approach to programming and for her deep as the first female conductor of the BBC’s Last commitment to education and to the development Night of . She returns to the Proms this of audiences of all ages. summer to conduct the Last Night and an all- Brahms programme with the Orchestra of the Age Her outstanding success as Music Director of the of Enlightenment. 2014/15 highlights have included Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since 2007 has a European tour with the LPO and a Remembrance been recognised by two extensions in her tenure, Day performance of Britten’s War Requiem at now confirmed until 2021. As part of her artistic Southbank Centre with young musicians from leadership in Baltimore, Marin Alsop has created the Royal Academy of Music and the National bold initiatives that have contributed to the wider Youth Choir of Great Britain. In March 2016, Alsop community and reached new audiences. In 2008 will celebrate Carnegie Hall’s 125th anniversary Music Director she launched ‘OrchKids’, which provides music conducting Bernstein’s West Side Story in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra education, instruments, meals and mentorship of Knockdown Center, a restored factory in Queens. the city’s neediest young people. Engaging the local Principal Conductor community, the BSO Academy and Rusty Musicians Marin Alsop is the recipient of numerous awards São Paulo Symphony Orchestra schemes also allow adult amateur musicians the and is the only conductor to receive the prestigious chance to play alongside members of the orchestra MacArthur Fellowship, given to US residents in Conductor Emeritus under Alsop’s baton. recognition of exceptional creative work. In 2008 she Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra became a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts Alsop took up the post of Principal Conductor of & Sciences and, in the following year, was chosen Music Director Laureate the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (OSESP) in 2012 as Musical America’s Conductor of the Year. In 2012 Colorado Symphony Orchestra and became Music Director in July 2013, with her Alsop was presented with Honorary Membership contract now extended to the end of 2019. She (HonRAM) of the Royal Academy of Music, London. Music Director continues to steer the Orchestra in its artistic and Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary creative programming, recording ventures and its Born in New York City, Marin Alsop attended Yale Music education and outreach activities, as well as their University and received her Master’s Degree from annual Campos do Jordão International Winter Festival. The . Her conducting career was launched when, in 1989, she was a prize-winner Since 1992, Marin Alsop has been Music Director of at the International Conducting California’s Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Competition and in the same year was the first where she has built a devoted audience for new music. woman to be awarded the Koussevitzky Conducting Building an orchestra is one of Alsop’s great gifts, Prize from the Tanglewood Music Center, where and she retains strong links with all of her previous she was a pupil of Leonard Bernstein. orchestras – Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

07-06 Alsop.indd 10 5/29/2015 1:11:07 PM lso.co.uk Artist Biographies 11

James Ehnes ‘A thinker of the violin as well as a supreme virtuoso Violin of the instrument.’ The Daily Telegraph

Born in 1976 in Brandon, , Canada, Ehnes has an extensive discography and has James Ehnes is a favourite guest of many of the won many awards for his recordings, including world’s most respected conductors, including a 2008 Gramophone Award for his live recording Vladimir Ashkenazy, Marin Alsop, Sir Andrew Davis, of the Elgar Concerto with Sir Andrew Davis and Charles Dutoit, Iván Fischer, Gianandrea Noseda, the Philharmonia Orchestra. His recording of the Paavo Järvi, Lorin Maazel, David Robertson and Korngold, Barber and Walton violin concertos Donald Runnicles. The long list of orchestras with won a 2008 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental whom Ehnes collaborates includes, amongst others, Soloist Performance and a 2008 JUNO award for the Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Best Classical Album of the Year. His recording of Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, New York, Philharmonia, the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, recorded live BBC Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic, DSO Berlin with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Ashkenazy, and NHK Symphony orchestras. received outstanding reviews. The Daily Telegraph wrote of the disc, ‘Ehnes’ gorgeous, supple tone Highlights of the 2014/15 season include concerts is combined with that instinct for a composer’s with the Vienna Symphony and Sir Mark Elder; distinctive character that makes his interpretations Frankfurt Radio Symphony and Andrés Orozco-Estrada; so compelling.’ Ehnes’ recent recording of the JAMES EHNES: BBC RADIO 3 Danish National Symphony and Gianandrea Noseda; Bartók Concertos was nominated for a 2012 LUNCHTIME CONCERT Orchestre National de Lyon and Yu Long; Royal Gramophone Award in the Concerto category. Thu 11 Jun 1pm, LSO St Luke’s Philharmonic Orchestra and Charles Dutoit; Recent releases include concertos by Britten, DSO Berlin and Sydney Symphony and Thomas Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Khachaturian. Beethoven Violin Sonata No 10 Søndergård; Boston Symphony and Stéphane Denève; Brahms Violin Sonata No 3 and and Vasily Petrenko. He also Ehnes began violin studies at the age of four, appears at the BBC Proms with the BBC National became a protégé of the noted Canadian violinist James Ehnes violin Orchestra of Wales and tours Europe with the Francis Chaplin aged nine, made his orchestral debut Steven Osborne piano Toronto Symphony, including a performance at with Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal aged 13, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. and graduated from The Juilliard School in 1997, lso.co.uk/lunchtimeconcerts winning the Peter Mennin Prize for Outstanding 020 7638 8891 Alongside his concerto work, James Ehnes maintains Achievement and Leadership in Music. He is a a busy recital schedule. He is a regular guest at Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and in 2010 Wigmore Hall in London and as a chamber musician was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada. he has collaborated with leading artists such as Leif Ove Andsnes, Louis Lortie, Jan Vogler and Yo-Yo Ma. James Ehnes plays the ‘Marsick’ Stradivarius of 1715. In 2010, he formally established the Ehnes Quartet, with whom he made his debut European tour in February 2014 with concerts at Wigmore Hall and the Auditorium du Louvre, amongst others. Ehnes is the Artistic Director of the Seattle Society.

07-06 Alsop.indd 11 5/29/2015 1:11:08 PM 12 The Orchestra 7 June 2015

London Symphony Orchestra Your views On stage Inbox

FIRST HORNS David Childs @londonsymphony on scintillating form Roman Simovic Leader Paul Silverthorne Adam Walker Timothy Jones here in Trafalgar Square this evening. The place is packed! Lennox Mackenzie Gillianne Haddow Alex Jakeman Angela Barnes Clare Duckworth Malcolm Johnston Alexander Edmundson Great atmosphere, wonderful music. Nigel Broadbent German Clavijo PICCOLO Jonathan Lipton on BMW LSO Open Air Classics 2015 in Trafalgar Square Ginette Decuyper Anna Bastow Sharon Williams Andrew Budden Gerald Gregory Julia O’Riordan OBOES Jörg Hammann Robert Turner TRUMPETS Jamie John Hutchings Amazing to see the crowds in Timothy Rundle Maxine Kwok-Adams Heather Wallington Philip Cobb Ruth Contractor Trafalgar Sq for #lsoopenair – simply amazing! Laurent Quenelle Elizabeth Butler Gerald Ruddock on BMW LSO Open Air Classics 2015 in Trafalgar Square Harriet Rayfield Carol Ella COR ANGLAIS Daniel Newell Ian Rhodes Francis Kefford Thomas Davey TROMBONES Sylvain Vasseur Melanie Martin Dudley Bright Howard J Sussman It was worth travelling from the US to David Worswick James Maynard Hilary Jane Parker Chris Richards see and hear the LSO. I was not disappointed. We loved it. Tim Hugh Chi-Yu Mo Jan Regulski BASS TROMBONE on the LSO with Valery Gergiev and on 12 May Alastair Blayden Helena Smart Paul Milner Jennifer Brown BASS CLARINET Lorenzo Iosco SECOND VIOLINS Eve-Marie Caravassilis TUBA David Alberman Daniel Gardner SAXOPHONE Patrick Harrild Thomas Norris Hilary Jones Simon Haram Sarah Quinn Amanda Truelove TIMPANI Richard Blayden Miwa Rosso BASSOONS Nigel Thomas Matthew Gardner Joanne Cole Rachel Gough PERCUSSION Naoko Keatley Susan Sutherley Joost Bosdijk William Melvin Neil Percy Iwona Muszynska DOUBLE BASSES CONTRA BASSOON David Jackson Andrew Pollock Hakan Ehren Dominic Morgan Antoine Bedewi Paul Robson Colin Tom Edwards Ingrid Button Nicholas Worters Benedict Hoffnung Hazel Mulligan Patrick Laurence HARPS Caroline Frenkel Matthew Gibson Bryn Lewis Robert Yeomans Thomas Goodman Joe Melvin Nuala Herbert Jani Pensola PIANO/CELESTE John Alley

LSO STRING EXPERIENCE SCHEME

Established in 1992, the LSO String Experience The Scheme is supported by London Symphony Orchestra Editor Scheme enables young string players at the Help Musicians UK Barbican Edward Appleyard start of their professional careers to gain The Garrick Charitable Trust Silk Street [email protected] work experience by playing in rehearsals The Lefever Award London and concerts with the LSO. The scheme The Polonsky Foundation EC2Y 8DS Photography auditions students from the London music Igor Emmerich, Kevin Leighton, conservatoires, and 15 students per year Taking part in both the rehearsals and the Registered charity in England No 232391 Bill Robinson, Alberto Venzago are selected to participate. The musicians performance of this concert were: Details in this publication were correct Print Cantate 020 3651 1690 are treated as professional ’extra’ players Alex Lagasse and Felicity Matthews. at time of going to press. (additional to LSO members) and receive fees Advertising Cabbell Ltd 020 3603 7937 for their work in line with LSO section players.

07-06 Alsop.indd 12 5/29/2015 1:11:08 PM