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Few artists are as important to the fabric of their communities as JoAnn Falletta. Acclaimed by The New York Times as “one of the finest conductors of her generation”, she serves as the Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra.
Ms. Falletta has been invited to guest conduct many of the world’s finest symphony orchestras. Highlights of her recent and upcoming guest conducting appearances include her debuts with the Orchestra National de Belgique, the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester, the Dallas Symphony, the Orchestre National De Lyon, the Northwest German Philharmonic, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Lisbon Metropolitan Symphony, the New Jersey Symphony and the Seoul Philharmonic, and return engagements with the Seattle, Utah, San Antonio, Louisville and Colorado Symphony Orchestras, the Orchestra of Asturias (Spain), the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa (Japan), and the Rotterdam Philharmonic. She has guest conducted over 100 orchestras in North America. Highlights of her recent North American guest conducting appearances include the orchestras of Philadelphia, Montreal, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, Detroit, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Indianapolis, and the National Symphony. |
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Ms. Falletta is the recipient of many of the most prestigious conducting awards, including the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award for exceptionally gifted American conductors, the coveted Stokowski Competition, and the Toscanini, Ditson and Bruno Walter Awards for conducting. She is an ardent champion of music of our time, introducing over 400 works by American composers, including more than 80 world premieres, and has received nine awards from ASCAP for creative programming, as well as the American Symphony Orchestra League’s prestigious John S. Edwards Award.
Maestro Falletta’s 2007/08 season with the Buffalo Philharmonic was a prolific recording period, with the Orchestra recording four CDs and releasing two new discs on the Naxos label, including a world premiere recording of John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man and the international release of a disc of the works of Ottorino Respighi. Continuing to raise the BPO’s national and international prominence, Ms. Falletta once again led the orchestra in a number of concerts that were broadcast nationally on NPR’s Performance Today and SymphonyCast, and broadcast internationally through the European Broadcasting Union. The season also included the release of two new recordings by the Virginia Symphony: the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 with Norman Krieger, and Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy and Massenet’s Meditation with violinist Michael Ludwig.
Maestro Falletta’s growing discography, which includes over 40 titles, consists of recordings with the London Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Virginia Symphony, the English Chamber Orchestra, the New Zealand Symphony, the Long Beach Symphony, the Czech National Symphony, the Philadelphia Philharmonia and the Women’s Philharmonic, among others. In addition to her upcoming releases with the BPO and the VSO, Ms. Falletta’s current projects include her first recording with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for the Naxos label, featuring the violin concertos of Dohnanyi. Other upcoming releases for this season include a world premiere recording of the orchestral music of Kenneth Fuchs with the London Symphony to be released on the Naxos label, and a recording of the music of Paul Schoenfield with the Prague Philharmonia. This summer, the Virginia Arts Festival released Borrowed Treasures, Ms. Falletta’s third disc of chamber music for guitar, featuring Ms. Falletta as guitarist.
Together with English Horn soloist Thomas Stacy and the London Symphony Orchestra, Falletta received a 2006 Grammy nomination for Eventide (Concerto for English Horn, Percussion, Harp, Celesta and String Orchestra) by Kenneth Fuchs, from the CD An American Place (Naxos American Classics).
Ms. Falletta received her undergraduate degree from the Mannes School of Music in New York, and her master’s and doctorate degrees from The Juilliard School.
From www.joannfalletta.com
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Alexander Platt is forging a unique, adventurous career among the younger American conductors. In summer 2007 he made his highly acclaimed Canadian debut conducting at the celebrated Banff Music Centre, and in July he made his New York City debut conducting the Brooklyn Philharmonic in Central Park; just this summer the Brooklyn Philharmonic invited him back, conducting Dvorák’s New World Symphony at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. On Labor Day weekend 2007, as a result of a Rockefeller grant from the New York State Music Fund, he led the world premiere of his own chamber-orchestra version of David Del Tredici’s FINAL ALICE, as part of his role as Music Director of the Maverick Concerts in Woodstock, New York, the oldest summer chamber-music festival in America; the New York Times hailed his arrangement as a workable version of Del Tredici's neglected masterpiece.
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In the 2007-08 season he continued his work as Music Director of Wisconsin’s Waukesha Symphony and the Marion Indiana Philharmonic, and began his equally acclaimed work as the new Music Advisor of the Boca Raton Symphonia, the appointment following his concert with flute virtuoso James Galway on 48-hours notice; the Palm Beach Post recently hailed his work there as the finest ensemble to emerge out of the demise of the Florida Philharmonic. He also made extremely successful debuts with the Flagstaff Symphony, the Quad City Symphony, and the Lexington Philharmonic, with his FSO performance of Sibelius’ difficult and esoteric Symphony No.3 being awarded an especially ecstatic reception. This season he makes his debuts with the Sioux City Symphony and Houston's new River Oaks Chamber Orchestra.
Alexander Platt made his debut with Chicago Opera Theater in 1997 in Mozart’s DON GIOVANNI, and was appointed Resident Conductor in 2000. Since then he has won international acclaim for his conducting of several of opera’s most celebrated and challenging modern masterpieces. He led the Chicago premieres of John Adams’ NIXON IN CHINA, Tchaikovsky’s IOLANTA, Britten’s DEATH IN VENICE and A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM; the Chicago full stage premiere of Schoenberg’s ERWARTUNG; and the world-premiere recording of Robert Kurka’s THE GOOD SOLDIER SCHWEIK, earning for them raves in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Financial Times of London as well as all the major Chicago papers. In 2008/9 Alexander leads the Chicago premiere of the Bizet/Peter Brook masterpiece, LA TRAGEDIE DE CARMEN.
Alexander Platt is now entering his second decade as Music Director of both the Waukesha Symphony and the Marion Indiana Philharmonic, and completed an extremely fruitful 12-year tenure as Music Director of the Racine Symphony Orchestra. In addition to mining a European repertory that has ranged from the late Haydn Masses to his own acclaimed adaptation of the Grieg/Ibsen PEER GYNT, Alexander has made a sustained commitment to the work of living American composers, leading the world or area premieres of major works by Joan Tower, Libby Larsen, Michael Torke, Daron Hagen, Aaron Jay Kernis and Russell Platt. His reconstruction of Erwin Stein's lost Chamber Version of Mahler Fourth Symphony has become a classic of the repertoire, with several commercial recordings, and based on this success and that of his chamber version of Del Tredici’s FINAL ALICE, he has also been sanctioned to arrange a chamber-ensemble version of John Corigliano's music for THE RED VIOLIN, as well as Ned Rorem’s forgotten masterpiece for voice and orchestra, SUN(1966).
Alexander Platt has guest-conducted the Houston, Charlotte, Columbus and Indianapolis Symphonies, the City of London Sinfonia, the Freiburg Philharmonic in Germany, and the Aalborg Festival in Denmark. In 2004 he recorded Scottish masterpieces for violin and orchestra with Rachel Barton and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra for Cedille Records, an album that has met with great success on radio stations across the continent. He has also recorded for National Public Radio, the South-West German Radio, and the BBC.
Born in New York City, Alexander Platt was educated at Yale University. He then spent three years as a Marshall Scholar at King’s College Cambridge, where he won high praise for his revival of Britten’s OWEN WINGRAVE. During this time there he made his professional conducting debut at England's legendary Aldeburgh festival, and spent his summers as a Conducting Fellow at both Aspen and Tanglewood.
From www.alexanderplatt.com
Learn about the featured conductors for the 2007-2008 season. |
