NEWS RELEASE
Vladimir Ashkenazy leads The Cleveland Orchestra
in concerts featuring his orchestration of
Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”
at Severance Hall on March 18 and 20
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet makes his Cleveland Orchestra debut
as soloist in Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1
CLEVELAND, March 5, 2010 – Vladimir Askenazy, principal conductor and artistic advisor to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and music director of the European Union Youth Orchestra, will conduct The Cleveland Orchestra in a program featuring his orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition at Severance Hall on Thursday, March 18, and Saturday, March 20, at 8:00 p.m. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet will make his Cleveland Orchestra debut in performances of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1.
The program begins with a suite, compiled by Mr. Ashkenazy, from Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet, followed by Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in D-flat major, Opus 10. After intermission, the program concludes with Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (transcribed for orchestra by Vladimir Ashkenazy).
Pianist, chamber musician, and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy has been a welcome guest with The Cleveland Orchestra for more than 40 years. Since making his Cleveland Orchestra debut as piano soloist in August 1968, he has appeared with the Orchestra in more than 150 concerts. From 1987 to 1994, Mr. Ashkenazy served as the Orchestra’s principal guest conductor, having conducted the ensemble on a regular basis since his Severance Hall podium debut in 1983.
For more than two decades, Mr. Ashkenazy has appeared primarily as a conductor, leading orchestras across the world. He has served as chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic (1998 to 2003) and music director of the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo (2004 to 2007). In January 2009, he became principal conductor and artistic advisor to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Ashkenazy continues his longstanding relationship with the Philharmonia Orchestra, of which he was appointed conductor laureate in 2000. He is also music director of the European Union Youth Orchestra, with whom he tours each year, and conductor laureate of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.
French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet was invited by Sir George Solti to make his debut with the Orchestre de Paris in 1995 and is considered the conductor’s last discovery. The pianist has maintained a close relationship with Pierre Boulez since their first appearance together with the Orchestre de Paris in 1998. Among his numerous recital appearances, he performed a cycle of the complete Beethoven piano sonatas in the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing during the 2008-09 season. In 2009, Mr. Bavouzet performed all five Prokofiev concertos with the Warsaw Philharmonic. His recording of Debussy’s complete works for solo piano has won multiple awards.
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These concerts are sponsored by Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP.
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s appearance as soloist with The Cleveland Orchestra is made possible by a contribution to the Orchestra’s Guest Artist Fund from The Gerhard Foundation.
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The Cleveland Orchestra’s 2009-10 season at Severance Hall is sponsored by UBS. Headquartered in Zurich and Basel, Switzerland, UBS is a global firm providing services to private, corporate and institutional clients. Its strategy is to focus on international wealth management and the Swiss banking business alongside its global expertise in investment banking and asset management. In Switzerland, UBS is the market leader in retail and commercial banking.
UBS is a significant supporter of orchestral music globally. In addition to its season sponsorship of The Cleveland Orchestra, the firm currently sponsors several other outstanding symphony orchestras, such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra and The Philadelphia Orchestra. These partnerships reflect UBS’s dedication to supporting the communities where it operates, as well as a philosophy of working collaboratively with its clients to deliver the customized solutions that help them pursue their goals.
More biographical information on Vladimir Ashkenazy and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet follows at the end of this release.
Ticket Prices: (Add $5 for Saturday): Orchestra: $71, $47; Dress Circle: $93, $55; Balcony: $71, $55, $31.
Ticket Services
The Severance Hall Ticket Office is located in the Smith Lobby. The entrance and 15-minute Ticket Service parking are along East Boulevard. Single tickets for all concerts in the 2009-10 season are now on sale.
Severance Hall Ticket Office Hours
M-F 9-6
Sat. 10-6
Closed Sundays and major holidays, except for those days with performances, when the Ticket Office opens three hours prior to the performance start time.
To charge tickets by telephone on American Express, Discover Card, MasterCard, and Visa, call Cleveland Orchestra Ticket Services at (216) 231-1111 (Cleveland) or 800-686-1141 during the regular ticket office hours listed above. Subscriptions and single tickets are also available online. The website offers secure ticket transactions with any major credit card and provides complete concert listings.
Free Concert Previews
Concert Previews will be given prior to the March 18 and 20 concerts, beginning at 7:00 p.m. in Reinberger Chamber Hall. The Previews, titled “Orchestrating Musical Pictures,” will be given by David Rothenberg, professor of music at Case Western Reserve University. Concert Previews are designed to enrich the concert-going experience by providing historical background and critical insight into the music performed at each concert. This series is funded by a generous endowment gift from Dorothy Humel Hovorka.
Parking
For evening subscription concerts at Severance Hall, parking can be purchased for $10 per vehicle, when space permits, in the Campus Center Garage (the underground garage located directly behind Severance Hall). Pre-paid parking for the Campus Center Garage can be purchased in advance through the Ticket Office at the cost of $14 per concert (this includes City of Cleveland parking tax and handling fee). The pre-paid parking ensures patrons a parking space, but availability of these pre-paid parking passes is limited.
For further information, or to order pre-paid parking, patrons should call the Cleveland Orchestra Ticket Office during regular office hours at (216) 231-1111 or 800-686-1141. Pre-paid parking passes are also available online.
Calendar Listings
Thursday, March 18, at 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, March 20, at 8:00 p.m.
Severance Hall
THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA
VLADIMIR ASHKENAZY, conductor
JEAN-EFFLAM BAVOUZET, piano
PROKOFIEV Suite from Romeo and JulietPROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 1
MUSSORGSKY Pictures at an Exhibition (orchestrated by Vladimir Ashkenazy)
Ticket Prices: $31-$98 – Call (216) 231-1111 or 800-686-1141, or order online at clevelandorchestra.com
Season Sponsor: UBS
Concert Sponsor: Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP
Guest Artist Fund: The Gerhard Foundation
Concert Preview, in Reinberger Chamber Hall beginning at 7:00 p.m.: “Orchestrating Musical Pictures”
Preview Speaker: David Rothenberg, professor of music at Case Western Reserve University
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Contacts
Jennifer Schlosser, (216) 231-7518; Email: jschlosser@clevelandorchestra.com
Ana Papakhian, Office: (216) 231-7476; Cell phone: (216) 370-2595; Email: anap@clevelandorchestra.com
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Vladimir Ashkenazy has led a richly active musical life as a pianist, chamber musician, and conductor. He made his Cleveland Orchestra debut as piano soloist in 1968 and has appeared with the Orchestra in over 150 concerts. From 1987 to 1994, he served as the Orchestra’s principal guest conductor, having led the ensemble on a regular basis since his Severance Hall podium debut in 1983. His most recent conducting engagement with the Orchestra was in September 2007. In addition to these concerts, Mr. Ashkenazy will also conduct the Orchestra in a pair of subscription concerts later in March, during the third week of its 2010 Miami Residency.
In the years since Vladimir Ashkenazy first came to prominence on the world stage in the 1955 Chopin Competition in Warsaw he has built an extraordinary career, not only as one of the most renowned and revered pianists of our times, but as an artist whose creative life encompasses a vast range of activities and continues to offer inspiration to music lovers across the world.
Conducting has formed the largest part of Mr. Ashkenazy’s activities for the past 20 years. Formerly chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic (1998-2003), he was music director of the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo (2004-2007). In January 2009, he became principal conductor and artistic advisor to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Alongside these positions, Mr. Ashkenazy continues his longstanding relationship with the Philharmonia Orchestra, of which he was appointed conductor laureate in 2000. In addition to his performances with the orchestra in London and around the UK each season, he tours with the ensemble worldwide.
Mr. Ashkenazy is also music director of the European Union Youth Orchestra, with whom he tours each year, and conductor laureate of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. He maintains strong ties to The Cleveland Orchestra and a number of other major orchestras with whom he has built special relationships over the years, including the San Francisco Symphony and Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, in addition to guest appearances with many other major orchestras around the world.
Mr. Ashkenazy continues to devote himself to the piano, these days mostly in the recording studio, where he continues to build his extraordinarily comprehensive recording catalogue with releases such as the 1999 Grammy Award-winning Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues, Rautavaara’s Piano Concerto No. 3 (a work that he commissioned) and Rachmaninoff Transcriptions. Most recently released are his recordings of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations.
With The Cleveland Orchestra, Mr. Ashkenazy’s recordings include the four Brahms symphonies; Beethoven’s piano concertos (as both soloist and conductor); works by Debussy, Prokofiev, and Richard Strauss; and all of Rachmaninoff’s piano-orchestral works, with soloist Jean-Yves Thibaudet.
Mr. Ashkenazy has long been involved in television projects. Recently, he has developed educational programs with NHK TV, including the 1999 Superteachers, working with inner-city London schoolchildren, and the 2003-04 documentary based around his “Prokofiev and Shostakovich Under Stalin” project with the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet
French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, who will make his Cleveland Orchestra debut at these concerts, has explored a repertoire ranging from Haydn, Beethoven, Bartók, and Prokofiev to contemporary works by composers such as Bruno Mantovani and Jörg Widmann. In addition to performing, he has also recently completed a transcription for two pianos of Debussy’s famous danced poem Jeux, which was published by Durand with a foreword by Pierre Boulez.
Mr. Bavouzet has maintained a close relationship with Pierre Boulez ever since their first appearance together with the Orchestre de Paris in 1998, and in 2008 they appeared together at the BBC Proms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Other recent engagements for Mr. Bavouzet have included appearances with the Orchestre National de France and Daniele Gatti, as well as the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Ingo Metzmacher, Orchestre Symphonique de Strasbourg, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Vladimir Ashkenazy. In March 2009, Mr. Bavouzet performed all five Prokofiev concertos with the Warsaw Philharmonic under Antoni Wit.
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is a regular at London’s Wigmore Hall as well as at the La Roque d’Antheron and Piano aux Jacobins festivals in France. He performed a concert cycle playing the complete Beethoven Sonatas in the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing throughout the 2008-09 season – a project for which he received the annual Classical Elites Beijing “Instrumental Recital of the Year” award. He has also given recitals at the Brighton and Bath Festivals, and at the International Piano Series at London’s Southbank Centre.
Highlights of Mr. Bavouzet’s 2009-10 season include Ravel’s G-major Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev, and performances with the BBC Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Malaysian Philharmonic, and the New Japan Philharmonic. He also returns to the Orchestre National de Lille to give the world premiere of a new piano concerto by Bruno Mantovani. Further ahead, he will appear with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Lawrence Foster, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Yan-Pascal Tortelier, and the Bergen Philharmonic under Andrew Davis.
An exclusive recording artist for Chandos, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet has won multiple awards for his recording project of Debussy’s Complete Works for Solo Piano, culminating in the reception of the BBC Music Magazine Award 2009 for Volume 3 of the cycle. Other awards include the “Choc de l’année 2008” (Le Monde de la Musique magazine), while Volume 2 won the “Diapason d’or 2008.” Future recording plans include Bartók’s piano concertos with the BBC Philharmonic and a recording of Ravel and Debussy with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, as well as a Haydn recital CD. Mr. Bavouzet’s Haydn recordings for Harmonic Records feature on the list of Le Monde de la Musique’s “150 best ever piano recordings.”
A former student of Pierre Sancan at the Paris Conservatoire, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet was invited by Sir George Solti to make his debut with the Orchestre de Paris in 1995 and is considered the conductor’s last discovery. Mr. Bavouzet is a professor in the piano department of the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, Germany.
