FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 6, 2012 Contact: Katherine E. Johnson (212) 875-5718; [email protected] JURAJ VALČUHA TO MAKE PHILHARMONIC DEBUT CONDUCTING WORKS BY WEBER, RACHMANINOFF, AND RICHARD STRAUSS Pianist André Watts Marks His 100th Philharmonic Performance with Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 December 5–8 and 11 Juraj Valčuha will make his New York Philharmonic conducting debut when he leads the Orchestra in Weber’s Oberon Overture; Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with André Watts, performing with the Philharmonic for the 100th time on December 6; Richard Strauss’s “Fantasie” from Die Frau ohne Schatten; and Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier Suite Wednesday, December 5, 2012, at 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, December 6 at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, December 8 at 8:00 p.m.; and Tuesday, December 11 at 7:30 p.m. Mr. Valčuha will also lead the same program at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center December 7 at 8:00 p.m. The program features a new Philharmonic collaborator making his debut — Juraj Valčuha — conducting longtime Philharmonic friend André Watts in his 100th performance with the Orchestra. Mr. Watts made his Philharmonic debut at age 16 at a Young People’s Concert telecast nationwide on CBS, conducted by then-Music Director Leonard Bernstein. Two weeks later, Mr. Bernstein engaged Mr. Watts to fill in for Glenn Gould, who had fallen ill. “I wanted to please my mother and my teacher, and I wanted the guys onstage to think I was actually good,” André Watts said. “But I had no sense, thankfully, of the fact that this could be the beginning of my career. There were no great pressures. Of course, in hindsight, it became a big deal.” The two works on the program by Richard Strauss are adapted from two of his operas: “Fantasie” comes from Die Frau ohne Schatten, and Strauss arranged Der Rosenkavalier Suite from his opera of the same name. The sweeping, dramatic melodies and sensitivity to mood in Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 are also reflected in his two operas of the same period, The Miserly Knight and Francesca da Rimini. (more) Juraj Valčuha / André Watts / 2 Related Events Pre-Concert Talks Composer and conductor Victoria Bond will introduce the program. Pre-Concert Talks are $7; discounts available for multiple concerts, students, and groups. They take place one hour before each performance in the Helen Hull Room, unless otherwise noted. Attendance is limited to 90 people. Information: nyphil.org or (212) 875-5656. Offstage Event André Watts, speaker Jeff Spurgeon, WQXR 105.9 FM, host Monday, December 3, 2012, 7:00 p.m. David Rubenstein Atrium, Broadway between 62nd and 63rd Streets New York Philharmonic Offstage events are free and seated on a first-come, first-served basis. National and International Radio Broadcast The program will be broadcast the week of January 9, 2013,* on The New York Philharmonic This Week, a radio concert series syndicated weekly to more than 300 stations nationally, and to 122 outlets internationally, by the WFMT Radio Network. The 52-week series, hosted by actor Alec Baldwin, is generously underwritten by The Kaplen Foundation, the Audrey Love Charitable Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Philharmonic’s corporate partner, MetLife Foundation. The broadcast will be available on the Philharmonic’s Website, nyphil.org. The program is broadcast locally in the New York metropolitan area on 105.9 FM WQXR on Thursdays at 9:00 p.m. *Check local listings for broadcast and program information. Artists Juraj Valčuha is chief conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Torino, Italy. In the 2012–13 season he makes debuts with the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and the Filarmonica della Scala Milan and returns to the National Symphony in Washington, D.C., Philharmonia London, Maggio Musicale Florence, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, and Orchestre de Paris. Last season Mr. Valčuha made his debut with Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw, Berlin Philharmonic, and the Boston, Cincinnati, Berlin Radio, and WDR symphony orchestras. He has appeared with Staatskapelle Dresden, Pittsburgh Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra. Mr. Valčuha conducted a new production of Puccini’s La boheme at Teatro La Fenice Venezia. With the RAI Orchestra he appeared on tour in the Abu Dhabi Classics series with Yo-Yo Ma and Evgeni Bozhanov. He made his debut with the Staatskapelle Dresden in the 2009–10 season, and at the Bavarian Staatsoper he conducted Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, as well as Puccini’s Turandot in Stuttgart. From 2005–2007 he regularly led the Orchestre National de France and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo. He was assistant music director of the Orchestre et Opéra National de Montpellier from 2003 to 2005. A native Slovakian, Juraj Valčuha studied composition, conducting, and cimbalom at the Bratislava Conservatory. In 1998 he moved to Paris and studied with Janos Fürst. (more) Juraj Valčuha / André Watts / 3 André Watts burst upon the music world at the age of 16, when Leonard Bernstein chose him to make his debut with the New York Philharmonic in their Young People’s Concerts, which were broadcast nationwide. Two weeks later, Bernstein asked him to appear again with the New York Philharmonic to substitute at the last minute for the ailing Glenn Gould in performances of Liszt’s E-flat-major Concerto. Mr. Watts’s recent and upcoming engagements include appearances with The Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the St. Louis, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Seattle, and National symphony orchestras. In celebration of the Liszt anniversary in 2011, he played all-Liszt recitals throughout the U.S. Highlights of his 2012–13 season include return visits to the Detroit and Cincinnati symphony orchestras and appearances with The Philadelphia Orchestra. He is also a regular guest at festivals including Ravinia, the Hollywood Bowl, and Tanglewood. Mr. Watts has appeared on numerous programs produced by PBS, the BBC, and the Arts and Entertainment Network. His 1976 New York recital, aired on Live From Lincoln Center, was the first full- length recital broadcast in the history of television. Mr. Watts’s discography includes recordings of works by Gershwin, Chopin, Liszt, and Tchaikovsky for CBS Masterworks; recital CDs of works by Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt, and Chopin for Angel/EMI; and recordings featuring the concertos of Liszt, MacDowell, Tchaikovsky, and Saint-Saens on Telarc. André Watts received a 2011 National Medal of Arts from President Obama, and in 1988 he won the Avery Fisher Prize. At age 26 Mr. Watts became the youngest person ever to receive an Honorary Doctorate from Yale, and he has been honored by the University of Pennsylvania, The Juilliard School, and his alma mater, the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Watts last appeared with the Orchestra in April 2008 performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1, conducted by Charles Dutoit. Repertoire Oberon, Carl Maria Von Weber’s last opera, was written in response to a request from London’s Covent Garden for a new work. The composer accepted the commission reluctantly; he was suffering from tuberculosis and his generally poor health was growing worse. Nevertheless, he accepted the offer out of concern for his family’s financial well-being. The opera relates the tale of the famous elf-king and his human wards. Despite its nonsensical libretto and convoluted plot, it contains beautifully orchestrated music of charm and delicacy that matches the fairy-tale nature of the story. The Overture was completed only three days before the opera’s August 12, 1836, premiere in London and was an instant success. Its inclusion in the New York Philharmonic’s very first concert, on December 7, 1842, attests to its popularity, and it remains one of two excerpts from Oberon heard regularly today. The Philharmonic most recently performed it under the baton of Lorin Maazel in Tokyo, on a November 2006 Asia tour. After the failure of his Symphony No. 1 in 1897, Sergei Rachmaninoff (still in his early 20s) began to give more emphasis to his career as a concert pianist and conductor. He occasionally attempted a return to composition, but with only mixed results. Then, in 1901, he produced the Piano Concerto No. 2, which has arguably become the most celebrated work of its genre in the 20th century. Asked about this sudden reversal of fortune, the composer said he had undergone hypnotherapy. Whatever the cause of its success, Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 began a (more) Juraj Valčuha / André Watts / 4 remarkable string of triumphs that continued with the Symphony No. 2 and the Piano Concerto No. 3. The Second Piano Concerto was first performed by the New York Symphony (which merged with the New York Philharmonic in 1928 to form today’s New York Philharmonic) in December 1914, led by Walter Damrosch, with Ossip Gabrilowitsch as soloist. The Orchestra most recently performed the work in Vail, Colorado, in July 2008 conducted by Bramwell Tovey and featuring Joyce Yang as soloist. Richard Strauss’s opera Die Frau Ohne Schatten (Woman without a Shadow) was first performed in Vienna in October 1919. Its convoluted plot, from a book by Von Hofmannsthal, centers on a princess who is unable to “cast a shadow,” i.e., have a child. Her husband, the Emperor, insists on an heir and secretly orders an intermediary to force one of his humble subjects who is pregnant to surrender her baby. In 1946 Strauss composed a “Fantasie” using material from the opera: it presents episodes from the score in almost the direct sequence in which they are performed in the opera.