Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Oregon Symphony announces 2009/10 season

The Oregon Symphony recently presented its lineup of soloists and concert schedule for next season. Some big names will appear with the orchestra like Pinchas Zukerman, Midori, and Itzhak Perlman, Angela Hewitt, Yefim Bronfman, Jon Kimura Parker, Ingrid Filter, Edgar Meyer, and Béla Fleck. I'm excited to see that Elina Vähälä will be back to play Britten's Violin Concerto, and the amazing Arnaldo Cohen will play all of the Beethoven piano concerts over a span of three nights plus the Triple Concerto for violin, cello and piano with guest cellist Quirine Viersen and OSO's concertmaster Jun Iwasaki.

One of the concerts that intrigues me the most will feature several of the orchestra's principals in Mozart's "Sinfonia Concertante" for flute, oboe, bassoon, and horn. Flutist David Buck, oboist Martin Hebert, bassoonist Carin Miller, and hornist John Cox will take center stage for that one. That concert will also feature Mendelssohn's rarely performed "The Fair Melusina Overture, the orchestra's premiere performance of Henri Dutileux's Symphony No. 2 ("The Double"), and Berlioz "Le Corsaire" Overture.

The concert series have been divided differently this year into three groups, with six concerts apiece in the A and B series and four in the C series. With the C series concerts, the OSO ventures into the Sunday afternoon time slot (2 pm) for the first time.

The Video Games Live concert is a new twist, and I've heard that this concert usually sells out and attracts lots of people who never attend symphony concerts. I'm very sure that the two performances of this concert will be standing room only.

Next season will be the first time in many years that former music director James DePeist will not be conducting the orchestra. His 5-year term as conductor laureate ended last season. This season leads the orchestra in concerts (on April 18, 19, and 20) simply as a guest conductor.

The Oregon Symphony has a fine video that previews next season on its web site here.

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