Friday, August 22, 2008

Gregory Vajda conducts the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival

Gregory Vajda, resident conductor of the Oregon Symphony will be conducting the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival’s performance of Bartok’s “Bluebeard’s Castle” tomorrow night (Saturday, the 23rd) at the Grosses Festspielhaus in Salzburg. The cast includes Michelle DeYoung, Falk Struckmann, Lance Ryan, André Jung, and the Vienna State Opera Chorus.

Back on April 3rd, I interviewed Vajda, because he has been short-listed for three conducting positions. During our talk, Vajda mentioned that he would be conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in Salzburg for "Bluebeard's Castle," because the scheduled conductor Peter Eötvös is a composer and his latest opera, "Love and Other Demons" is being given its world premiere at Glyndebourne. So Eötvös asked Gregory to take over the conducting at Salzburg while he is away.

In any case, conducting the Vienna Philharmonic has got to be one of the greatest thrills that any conductor can experience. Vajda will be back in town next week to join batons with Carlos Kalmar in conducting the Oregon Symphony at the Waterfront concert (August 28th). Tomorrow night the OSO gets a tune up at Mt. Scott Park at 7 pm. Brett Mitchell, assistant conductor at the Houston Symphony, will lead the OSO in this concert. Also, at 5 pm at the Waterfront concert, you can hear the Portland Youth Philharmonic under its new conductor David Hattner.

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