Friday, March 1, 2019 - 8:00 pm - Mechanics Hall
PROGRAM: 100 Years of Leonard Bernstein
"Overture" to Candide
"Symphonic Dances" from West Side Story
"Three Meditations" from Mass
Arias from Songfest, Peter Pan, Trouble in Tahiti
ABOUT THE CONDUCTOR AND SOLOIST
The distinguished and extraordinarily varied career of John Maucerihas taken him not only to the world's greatest opera companies and symphony orchestras, but also to the musical stages of Broadway and Hollywood as well as the most prestigious halls of academia. For seven years (2006-13), he served as the Chancellor of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem and is the Founding Director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in Los Angeles, which was created for him in 1991 by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association. He conducted over three hundred concerts at the 18,000-seat amphitheater with a total audience of some four million people. From June of 2000 until July of 2006, he conducted 22 productions as music director of the Pittsburgh Opera.
Mr. Mauceri served as music director ( direttore stabile ) of the Teatro Regio in Torino (Turin) Italy for three years after completing seven years as music director of Scottish Opera (22 productions and three recordings), and is the first American ever to have held the post of music director of an opera house in either Great Britain or Italy. He previously was music director of the Washington Opera (The Kennedy Center) and was the first music director of the American Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall after its founding director, Leopold Stokowski, with whom he studied. For fifteen years he served on the faculty of his alma mater, Yale University, returned in 2001 to teach and conduct the official concert celebrating the university's 300th anniversary and is the recipient of two awards from the university.
Mr. Mauceri is one of the world's most accomplished recording artists and is the recipient of Grammy, Tony, Olivier, Drama Desk, Edison, 2 Emmy, 2 Diapason d'Or, Cannes Classique, Billboard, and four Deutsche Schallplatten awards. In 1999, Mr.Mauceri was chosen as a "Standard-bearer of the Twentieth Century" for WQXR, the nation's most listened-to classical radio station. According to WQXR, "These are a select number of musical artists who have already established themselves as forces to be reckoned with and who will be the Standard Bearers of the 21st Century's music scene." The recipients were chosen for "their visionary talent and technical virtuosity." In addition, CNN and CNN International chose Mr. Mauceri as a "Voice of the Millennium".
Highly acclaimed for her “passionate intensity and remarkable vocal beauty,” the Grammy Award winning Isabel Leonardcontinues to thrill audiences both in the opera house and on the concert stage. In repertoire that spans from Vivaldi to Mozart to Thomas Ades, she has graced the stages of the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera, Salzburg Festival, Bavarian State Opera, Glyndebourne Festival, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia , Angelina in La Cenerentola , Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro , Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte , Blanche de la Force in Dialogues des Carmélites , the title roles in Griselda , La Périchole , and Der Rosenkavalier , as well as Sesto in both Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito and Handel’s Giulio Cesare .
She has appeared with some of the foremost conductors of her time: James Levine, Valery Gergiev, Charles Dutoit, Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Franz Welser-Möst, Edo de Waart, James Conlon, Andris Nelsons, and Harry Bicket with the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and Vienna Philharmonic, among others.
Ms. Leonard is in constant demand as a recitalist and is on the Board of Trustees at Carnegie Hall. She is a recent Grammy Award winner for Thomas Ades’ The Tempest (Best Opera Recording) and the recipient of the 2013 Richard Tucker Award. She recently joined the supporters of the Prostate Cancer Foundation to lend her voice in honor of her father who died from the disease when she was in college.
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