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9.22.2009

Lincoln Center Festival And The Cleveland Orchestra Announce A Multi-Year Residency Beginning In 2011

First residency concert programs to include Bruckner symphonies and works by John Adams July 13-17, 2011

Lincoln Center Festival 2013 and 2015 to include The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser-Möst in staged performances presented in association with the Vienna State Opera

NEW YORK, September 22, 2009 – Nigel Redden, Director of Lincoln Center Festival, and The Cleveland Orchestra’s Executive Director, Gary Hanson, today announced a new multi-year residency for the Orchestra at Lincoln Center Festival that will begin in 2011, and continue in 2013 and 2015. The Cleveland Orchestra Lincoln Center Festival residency is the festival’s first multi-year commitment with a visiting orchestra.

In 2011, Music Director Franz Welser-Möst will lead four concerts juxtaposing Anton Bruckner symphonies nos. 5, 7, 8 and 9 with works by John Adams July 13-17 (full program details to be confirmed). As part of the 2011 residency, Franz Welser-Möst will return to The Juilliard School for his second master class on Bruckner.

In 2013 and 2015, The Cleveland Orchestra’s Lincoln Center Festival residency broadens in scope to include fully-staged productions from the Vienna State Opera presented with The Cleveland Orchestra performing in the pit of the David H. Koch Theater under the baton of Franz Welser-Möst. In 2010, Franz Welser-Möst—whose contract with The Cleveland Orchestra extends to the 2017-2018 season—will become General Music Director of the Vienna State Opera. That same year, Dominique Meyer, currently the General Director of Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, will become the Vienna State Opera’s Intendant. Repertoire for summer 2013 and 2015, which will also include concert and possibly ballet performances, is still under discussion.

“This residency represents the culmination of a series of conversations with The Cleveland Orchestra about participating in a long-term relationship with Lincoln Center Festival. The choice of Bruckner and Adams is intriguing for 2011, and we are thrilled that our audiences will be able to hear this superb orchestra play this repertoire in a highly-concentrated period of time. We are also looking forward to investigating unusual repertoire with orchestra for 2013 and 2015,” Mr. Redden said.

Said Franz Welser-Möst, “Dominique Meyer and I are very pleased to have the opportunity to bring our future productions to the Lincoln Center Festival with this creative partnership. The Cleveland Orchestra and I have made a long-term commitment to residency activity as well as to the operatic repertoire. We are delighted to bring to New York the full range of what we do in Cleveland, Salzburg and Miami.”

Adds Mr. Meyer, “It will be a real pleasure to showcase new Vienna State Opera productions in New York City at the Lincoln Center Festival beginning in 2013. And the possibility to partner with The Cleveland Orchestra is a gift that does not happen often. We anticipate a stimulating association, indeed!”

Said Gary Hanson, “We are grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with the Vienna State Opera to create something unique for the Lincoln Center Festival. This multi-year commitment gives us the ability to envision something completely new, inspired by the festival.”

Since his appointment as The Cleveland Orchestra’s Music Director, Franz Welser-Möst has annually conducted an opera, either in concert or staged. During the 2009-10 season, The Cleveland Orchestra will present staged performances of Mozart’s Così fan tutte on March 2, 4, 6 and 8, 2010 at Severance Hall, using sets and costumes from the Zurich Opera with the Orchestra performing in the pit. In 2008, the Orchestra presented Le Nozze di Figaro, and a third Mozart/Da Ponte opera, Don Giovanni, will be presented during the 2010-11 season. Prior to Le Nozze di Figaro, Mr. Welser-Möst led The Cleveland Orchestra in Don Carlo, Falstaff, Hansel and Gretel, Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, and Rusalka. Staged performances of Rusalka were subsequently performed during the Orchestra’s 2008 Salzburg Festival residency.

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Since its inaugural season in 1996, Lincoln Center Festival has received worldwide attention for presenting some of the broadest and most original performing arts programs in Lincoln Center’s history. In fourteen seasons, the festival has presented more than 1,000 performances by artists from more than 50 countries, commissioning nearly 30 new works and offering more than 110 world, U.S., and New York premieres. It places particular emphasis on showcasing contemporary artistic viewpoints and multidisciplinary works that push the boundaries of traditional performance. www.lincolncenterfestival.org

In addition to its full concert season in Cleveland and summer season at the Blossom Festival, The Cleveland Orchestra regularly participates in residencies at the Musikverien in Vienna and the Lucerne Festival. In January 2007, the Orchestra began an annual residency in Miami, Florida, where it performs at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County. Residencies are anchored by multiple orchestral concerts and opera performances and include additional activities developed in partnership with community-based institutions. These activities, which include education and outreach programs, chamber music, and master classes, are oriented toward building audiences and developing the next generation of orchestral musicians. www.clevelandorchestra.com

Franz Welser-Möst is in his eighth year as Music Director of The Cleveland Orchestra. His long-term commitment extends to the Orchestra’s centennial in 2018. Under his direction, the Orchestra is enlarging and enhancing its community programming at home, is presented in a series of ongoing residencies in the United States and Europe, continues its historic championship of new composers through commissions and premieres, and has re-established itself as an important operatic ensemble. Concurrently with his post in Cleveland, Mr. Welser-Möst will become General Music Director of the Vienna State Opera in the fall of 2010.

Dominique Meyer has been the general and artistic director of the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris since 1999. In 1989 he was named general director of the Opéra National de Paris, which also includes the opera houses Palais Garnier and Opéra Bastille. Before accepting the position of general director of the Lausanne Opera in 1994, he returned to the arena of French cultural policy serving as a director in the cabinet of the Ministry of Culture and Communications under Culture Minister Catherine Tasca, then as an advisor in the areas of cultural affairs, communications, youth affairs, education and sports in the cabinets of Prime Minister Edith Cresson and Pierre Bérégovoy.

The Vienna State Opera season runs September to June and offers repertoire performances of 60 operas and ballets. An artistic pillar of the house is a regular ensemble of singers and the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, from whose members the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra recruits its musicians. www.weiner-staatsoper.at

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Media Contacts:

Lincoln Center Festival
Eileen McMahon
(212) 875-5391
emcmahon@lincolncenter.org

The Cleveland Orchestra
Ana Papakhian
(216) 231-7476
(216) 370-2595
anap@clevelandorchestra.com

Shuman Associates Inc.
Connie Shuman/Jennifer Scott
(212) 315-1300
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jscott@shumanassociates.net