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Brahms' First Piano Concerto & Bartók

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Brahms' First Piano Concerto & Bartók

Friday, February 3—Saturday, February 4, 2023

Friday, February 3—Saturday, February 4, 2023
Orchestra Hall
2 hours

Brahms’ First Piano Concerto is vast in its scope, requiring dexterity, power, and grace from the soloist—the phenomenally versatile Garrick Ohlsson in these performances—as well as storms of expression from the orchestra. It is a concerto in which the orchestra and soloist are truly equal partners in storytelling. Two 20th century classics, both with unusual instrumentation, open this concert. Music Director Laureate Leonard Slatkin conducts.

Program

IGOR STRAVINSKY
Symphonies of Wind Instruments
BÉLA BARTÓK
Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, Sz. 106
JOHANNES BRAHMS
Piano Concerto No. 1

Artists

Leonard Slatkin

conductor

Internationally acclaimed conductor Leonard Slatkin is Music Director Laureate of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO), Directeur Musical Honoraire of the Orchestre National de Lyon (ONL), and Conductor Laureate of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. He maintains a rigorous schedule of guest conducting throughout the world and is active as a composer, author, and educator. 

Slatkin has received six Grammy Awards and 35 nominations. His latest recording is the world premiere of Alexander Kastalsky’s Requiem for Fallen Brothers commemorating the 100th anniversary of the armistice ending World War I. Other recent Naxos releases include works by Saint-Saëns, Ravel, and Berlioz (with the ONL) and music by Copland, Rachmaninov, Borzova, McTee, and John Williams (with the DSO). In addition, he has recorded the complete Brahms, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky symphonies with the DSO (available online as digital downloads). 

A recipient of the prestigious National Medal of Arts, Slatkin also holds the rank of Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor. He has received the Prix Charbonnier from the Federation of Alliances Françaises, Austria’s Decoration of Honor in Silver, the League of American Orchestras’ Gold Baton Award, and the 2013 ASCAP Deems Taylor Special Recognition Award for his debut book, Conducting Business. His second book, Leading Tones: Reflections on Music, Musicians, and the Music Industry, was published by Amadeus Press in 2017. He is working on a third volume, Classical Crossroads: The Path Forward for Music in the 21st Century.

Slatkin has conducted virtually all the leading orchestras in the world. As Music Director, he has held posts in New Orleans; St. Louis; Washington, DC; London (with the BBCSO); Detroit; and Lyon, France. He has also served as Principal Guest Conductor in Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Cleveland.

Garrick Ohlsson

Pianist Garrick Ohlsson has established himself worldwide as a musician of magisterial interpretive and technical prowess. Although long regarded as one of the world’s leading exponents of the music of Chopin, Ohlsson commands an enormous repertoire ranging over the entire piano literature and he has come to be noted for his masterly performances of the works of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, as well as the Romantic repertoire. To date he has at his command more than 80 concertos, ranging from Haydn and Mozart to works of the 21st century. 

In 2018-2019 season he launched an ambitious project spread over multiple seasons exploring the complete solo piano works of Brahms in four programs to be heard in New York, San Francisco, Montreal, Los Angeles, London, and a number of cities across North America. A frequent guest with the orchestras in Australia, Ohlsson has recently visited Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, and Hobart as well as the New Zealand Symphony in Wellington and Auckland. In February 2020 he accomplished a seven-city recital tour across Australia just prior to the closure of the concert world due to Covid-19.  Since that time and as a faculty member of San Francisco Conservatory of Music he has been able to contribute to keeping music alive for a number of organizations with live or recorded recital streams including a duo program with Kirill Gerstein with whom he will tour the US in winter 2022. With the re-opening of concert activity in the US, in summer 2021 he appeared with the Indianapolis and Cleveland orchestras, in recital in San Francisco, Brevard Festival, and 4 Brahms recitals at Chicago’s Ravinia Festival. The 2021-2022 season began with the KBS Orchestra, Seoul followed by Atlanta, Dallas, Seattle symphonies, BBC Glasgow and European orchestras in Prague, Hamburg, Lyon, and St. Petersburg. In recital he can be heard in Los Angeles, Houston, and Kansas City, as well as Poland, Germany, and England. 

An avid chamber musician, Ohlsson has collaborated with the Cleveland, Emerson, Tokyo, and Takacs string quartets, including most recently Boston Chamber Players on tour in Europe. Together with violinist Jorja Fleezanis and cellist Michael Grebanier, he is a founding member of the San Francisco-based FOG Trio. Passionate about singing and singers, Ohlsson has appeared in recital with such legendary artists as Magda Olivero, Jessye Norman, and Ewa Podleś. Ohlsson can be heard on the Arabesque, RCA Victor Red Seal, Angel, BMG, Delos, Hänssler, Nonesuch, Telarc, Hyperion, and Virgin Classics labels. 

A native of White Plains, NY, Ohlsson began his piano studies at the age of 8, at the Westchester Conservatory of Music; at 13 he entered The Juilliard School, in New York City. He has been awarded first prizes in the Busoni and Montreal Piano competitions, the Gold Medal at the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw (1970), the Avery Fisher Prize (1994), the University Musical Society Distinguished Artist Award in Ann Arbor, MI (1998), the Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance from the Northwestern University Bienen School of Music (2014), and the Gloria Artis Gold Medal for cultural merit from the Polish Deputy Culture Minister. 

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Saturday, February 4
7:45pm
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Copland Concerto for Piano and Orchestra – Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Garrick Ohlsson (excerpt)

And watching him, you can tell that Ohlsson feels the music deep in his bones...breathing life into music written hundreds of years ago. ”

-The Republican

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