PROGRAM
| Beethoven | Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61 |
| Beethoven | Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 55, “Eroica” |
The Minnesota Orchestra is recognized for distinguished performances around the world, award-winning recordings, radio broadcasts and educational programs, and commitment to building the repertoire of the future. Founded as the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in 1903, the ensemble played its first regional tour in 1907, debuted at Carnegie Hall in 1912, and has returned for regular New York performances ever since. The Orchestra has toured to Australia, Canada, Europe, the Far East, Latin America and the Middle East. In 2003 the Orchestra welcomed its tenth music director, Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä, succeeding other celebrated music directors including Eugene Ormandy, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Antal Dorati, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Neville Marriner and Edo de Waart.
Erin Keefe, violin
The Orchestra’s season encompasses nearly 200 concerts annually, heard live by 400,000 individuals, and education and outreach programs that serve 85,000 music lovers of all ages. Thousands also hear the Orchestra via live regional broadcasts and the national programs SymphonyCast and Performance Today. This season, Great Britain’s BBC Radio 3 also selected six of the Orchestra’s concerts for broadcast.
In the early 1920s, the Minnesota Orchestra became one of the first ensembles to be heard on recordings and radio. Its landmark Mercury Living Presence LP recordings of the 1950s and 1960s have been reissued on compact disc to great acclaim. The Orchestra’s recent cycle of the complete Beethoven symphonies has been hailed internationally—The New York Times wrote that this Beethoven cycle “may be the definitive one of our time.” During the 2008-09 season the Orchestra released a CD of Stephen Paulus’ oratorio commemorating victims of the Holocaust, To Be Certain of the Dawn, with libretto by poet Michael Dennis Browne; new releases this season included a two-CD set of Tchaikovsky’s major piano-and-orchestra works featuring Stephen Hough and a recording of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony. The Orchestra is now midway through another Beethoven project, recording all five Beethoven piano concertos with Yevgeny Sudbin.
The Minnesota Orchestra has commissioned and/or premiered more than 300 compositions and has won 16 awards for adventurous programming from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), including—unprecedented among American orchestras—three consecutive Leonard Bernstein Awards for integrating new music into education programs. In 2008 it also won the John S. Edwards Award for Strongest Commitment to New American Music.
For more information, visit minnesotaorchestra.org.
Osmo Vänskä, conductor
Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä, who in 2003 became the Minnesota Orchestra’s tenth music director, is recognized for his compelling interpretations of the standard, contemporary and Nordic repertoires. During his Minnesota tenure Vänskä has drawn acclaim for performances at home and abroad, including concert tours to European music capitals in 2009 and 2004, a tour of major European festivals in 2006, and numerous performances throughout Minnesota. In August he and the Orchestra again travel abroad to perform at major music festivals, including the BBC Proms—where they are the only American orchestra on this year’s roster and are presented for not one but two concerts.
Vänskä’s five-disc cycle of the complete Beethoven symphonies, recorded with the Orchestra for the Swedish label BIS, has garnered superlative praise worldwide, and two—one of the Ninth Symphony and one of the Second and Seventh—receiving Grammy and Classic FM Grammophone award nominations, respectively. He recently completed a cycle of Tchaikovsky’s major piano-and-orchestra works with Stephen Hough and continues with a multi-year project of recording the complete Beethoven piano concertos with Yevgeny Sudbin.
As a guest conductor, Vänskä has led all the major American and European orchestras, including those of Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Cleveland in this country, and such European ensembles as the Berlin Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
Vänskä began his music career as a clarinetist, holding major posts with orchestras in his native Finland. For two decades he was music director of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, which he transformed into one of Finland’s flagship orchestras, attracting worldwide attention for performances and for award-winning Sibelius recordings on the BIS label. By 2008, when he was named Lahti’s conductor laureate, he had also completed a five-year tenure as chief conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra of Glasgow. Since arriving in Minnesota he has again taken up his original instrument, performing as a clarinetist in chamber ensembles at Orchestra Hall, other Twin Cities venues and festivals including the Mostly Mozart Festival, where he also conducts each summer.
Vänskä has extended his tenure with the Minnesota Orchestra through 2015. For more information, visit minnesotaorchestra.org.
Sunday, July 22, 4:00 p.m.
Minnesota Orchestra
Osmo Vänskä, conductor
Erin Keefe, violin
Winona Middle School
$25, $21 students and senior citizens
