For Immediate Release
March 6, 2014
DONALD RUNNICLES LEADS PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA IN EXCERPTS FROM WAGNER’S RING CYCLE AT HEINZ HALL
PITTSBURGH—One of the world’s leading Wagnerians, Maestro Donald Runnicles, returns to lead the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in the BNY Mellon Grand Classics program on March 21 and 23.
Another Pittsburgh Composer of the Year is featured during the weekend’s performance — the Pittsburgh Symphony will perform “Euphonic Blues” by Carnegie Mellon University’s Nancy Galbraith. Mendelssohn's nuanced Piano Concerto No. 1 features acclaimed British-born pianist Stephen Hough, the first classical musician to win a McArthur Foundation Fellowship. Runnicles finishes the performance with a rare treat — orchestral excerpts from Wagner's famous four-epic opera cycle, “Der Ring des Nibelungen.”
Each BNY Mellon Grand Classics concert is part of the Explore & Engage program, which includes pre-concert talks, exhibits, display boards and interactive activities that illuminate the music, composers and the time in which they created. That weekend, Resident Conductor Lawrence Loh will conduct a pre-concert talk with composer Nancy Galbraith one hour before each performance.
The concert begins at 8 p.m. on Friday and 2:30 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets, ranging in price from $25.75 to $105.75, can be purchased by calling the Heinz Hall box office at 412-392-4900 or by visiting pittsburghsymphony.org.
The Pittsburgh Symphony would like to recognize and thank BNY Mellon for its 2013-2014 title sponsorship of BNY Mellon Grand Classics. Fairmont Pittsburgh is the official hotel of the Pittsburgh Symphony. Delta Air Lines is the official airline of the Pittsburgh Symphony.
Donald Runnicles is concurrently the general music director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin (DOB), chief conductor of BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (BBC SSO), and music director of the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson, Wyo. Runnicles also is principal guest conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO). Beyond his annual BBC SSO, Atlanta and Grand Teton commitments, Runnicles is active in symphonic repertoire and finds time to guest conduct with some of the world’s finest symphony orchestras. Runnicles was born in Edinburgh and was educated there and at Cambridge. Following a season with the London Opera Centre, he began his career in Mannheim, Germany as repetiteur, and spent summers assisting in Bayreuth where he further honed and explored his Wagnerian disposition, and guesting throughout the German repertory theaters and orchestras. He made his North American debut in 1988 conducting Berg’s “Lulu” at the Metropolitan Opera, jumping in for an indisposed James Levine; in 1989, he became General Music Director in Freiburg, Germany for three years, and to which he returned in 2010 to help honor and celebrate the Freiburg orchestra’s centennial. In 1990, after two “Ring” cycles at San Francisco Opera, he was asked to be its music director, and began the appointment two years later. Over the last two decades he has conducted at leading international opera houses, orchestras, and summer festivals. Among the awards bestowed upon him are the Order of the British Empire and honorary degrees from Edinburgh University, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, an honorary doctorate from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.
In 2001, Stephen Hough was the first classical performing artist to win a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. He was awarded the 2008 Northwestern University’s Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano, won the Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist Award in 2010 and in January 2014 was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth in the New Year’s Honors List. He has appeared with most of the major European and American orchestras and plays recitals regularly in major halls and concert series around the world. He is also a regular guest at festivals such as Aldeburgh, Aspen, Blossom, Edinburgh, Hollywood Bowl, Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Salzburg, Tanglewood, Verbier and the BBC Proms, where he has made more than 20 concerto appearances, including playing all of the works written by Tchaikovsky for piano and orchestra over summer 2009, a series he later repeated with the Chicago Symphony. He is artist-in-residence with the BBC Philharmonic and performs with orchestras including the Netherlands Philharmonic, NHK Symphony, Royal Philharmonic and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. A noted writer, Hough has regularly contributed articles for The Guardian, The Times, The Tablet, Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine and was invited by The Telegraph in London in 2008 to start a blog that has become one of the most popular and influential forums for cultural discussion. His book, “The Bible as Prayer,” was published by Continuum and Paulist Press in 2007. Hough resides in London and is a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music and holds the International Chair of Piano Studies at his alma mater, the Royal Northern College in Manchester.
Composer and Pittsburgh native Nancy Galbraith is professor of composition at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Music. She began piano studies at age four, and later earned degrees in composition from Ohio University (BA) and West Virginia University (MA). Her studies in composition, piano and organ continued at Carnegie Mellon University. In a career that spans over three decades, her music has earned praise for its rich harmonic texture, rhythmic vitality, emotional and spiritual depth, and wide range of expression. Galbraithʼs symphonic works have enjoyed regular performances by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, including premieres led by Gennady Rozhdetsvensky and Mariss Jansons. Her “De profundis ad lucem” received its European premiere by the Limburg Symphony Orchestra in the Netherlands. Her Piano Concerto No. 1 was recorded by Keith Lockhart and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. Galbraith composes in a variety of styles, including pieces for wind ensembles, major choral works, chamber works (including electroacoustic pieces for Baroque flutist Stephen Schultz), ballet (“Whispers of Light” premiered this year at Bodiography Contemporary Ballet in Pittsburgh) and scared music. Galbraith is an accomplished pianist and organist and has written a number of works for those instruments.
Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts is owned and operated by Pittsburgh Symphony, Inc., a non-profit organization, and is the year-round home of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. The cornerstone of Pittsburgh’s Cultural District, Heinz Hall hosts many events that do not feature its world-renowned Orchestra including Broadway shows, comedians, speakers and much more. For a full calendar of upcoming non-symphony events at the hall, visit heinzhall.org.
Editors Please Note:
Friday, March 21 at 8 p.m.
Sunday, March 23 at 2:30 p.m.
Heinz Hall
PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
BNY MELLON GRAND CLASSICS
DONALD RUNNICLES, conductor
STEPHEN HOUGH, piano
Nancy Galbraith Euphonic Blues
Felix Mendelssohn Concerto No. 1 in G minor for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 25
I. Molto allegro con fuoco
II. Andante
III. Presto - Molto allegro e vivace
Richard Wagner Orchestral Highlights from Der Ring des Nibelungen
Ride of the Valkyries
Forest Murmurs
Siegfried's Rhine Journey
Siegfried's Funeral March
Brunhilde's Immolation Scene
###
Contact: Louise Sciannameo, Vice President of Public Affairs
Phone: 412.392.4866 | email: lsciannameo@pittsburghsymphony.org
Contact: Joyce DeFrancesco, Director of Media Relations
Phone: 412.392.4827 | email: jdefrancesco@pittsburghsymphony.org
Twitter: @pghsymphony |Facebook: facebook.com/PittsburghSymphonyOrchestra
March 6, 2014
DONALD RUNNICLES LEADS PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA IN EXCERPTS FROM WAGNER’S RING CYCLE AT HEINZ HALL
PITTSBURGH—One of the world’s leading Wagnerians, Maestro Donald Runnicles, returns to lead the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in the BNY Mellon Grand Classics program on March 21 and 23.
Another Pittsburgh Composer of the Year is featured during the weekend’s performance — the Pittsburgh Symphony will perform “Euphonic Blues” by Carnegie Mellon University’s Nancy Galbraith. Mendelssohn's nuanced Piano Concerto No. 1 features acclaimed British-born pianist Stephen Hough, the first classical musician to win a McArthur Foundation Fellowship. Runnicles finishes the performance with a rare treat — orchestral excerpts from Wagner's famous four-epic opera cycle, “Der Ring des Nibelungen.”
Each BNY Mellon Grand Classics concert is part of the Explore & Engage program, which includes pre-concert talks, exhibits, display boards and interactive activities that illuminate the music, composers and the time in which they created. That weekend, Resident Conductor Lawrence Loh will conduct a pre-concert talk with composer Nancy Galbraith one hour before each performance.
The concert begins at 8 p.m. on Friday and 2:30 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets, ranging in price from $25.75 to $105.75, can be purchased by calling the Heinz Hall box office at 412-392-4900 or by visiting pittsburghsymphony.org.
The Pittsburgh Symphony would like to recognize and thank BNY Mellon for its 2013-2014 title sponsorship of BNY Mellon Grand Classics. Fairmont Pittsburgh is the official hotel of the Pittsburgh Symphony. Delta Air Lines is the official airline of the Pittsburgh Symphony.
Donald Runnicles is concurrently the general music director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin (DOB), chief conductor of BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (BBC SSO), and music director of the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson, Wyo. Runnicles also is principal guest conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO). Beyond his annual BBC SSO, Atlanta and Grand Teton commitments, Runnicles is active in symphonic repertoire and finds time to guest conduct with some of the world’s finest symphony orchestras. Runnicles was born in Edinburgh and was educated there and at Cambridge. Following a season with the London Opera Centre, he began his career in Mannheim, Germany as repetiteur, and spent summers assisting in Bayreuth where he further honed and explored his Wagnerian disposition, and guesting throughout the German repertory theaters and orchestras. He made his North American debut in 1988 conducting Berg’s “Lulu” at the Metropolitan Opera, jumping in for an indisposed James Levine; in 1989, he became General Music Director in Freiburg, Germany for three years, and to which he returned in 2010 to help honor and celebrate the Freiburg orchestra’s centennial. In 1990, after two “Ring” cycles at San Francisco Opera, he was asked to be its music director, and began the appointment two years later. Over the last two decades he has conducted at leading international opera houses, orchestras, and summer festivals. Among the awards bestowed upon him are the Order of the British Empire and honorary degrees from Edinburgh University, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, an honorary doctorate from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.
 |
| Photo Credit: Sim Canetty-Clark |
Composer and Pittsburgh native Nancy Galbraith is professor of composition at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Music. She began piano studies at age four, and later earned degrees in composition from Ohio University (BA) and West Virginia University (MA). Her studies in composition, piano and organ continued at Carnegie Mellon University. In a career that spans over three decades, her music has earned praise for its rich harmonic texture, rhythmic vitality, emotional and spiritual depth, and wide range of expression. Galbraithʼs symphonic works have enjoyed regular performances by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, including premieres led by Gennady Rozhdetsvensky and Mariss Jansons. Her “De profundis ad lucem” received its European premiere by the Limburg Symphony Orchestra in the Netherlands. Her Piano Concerto No. 1 was recorded by Keith Lockhart and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. Galbraith composes in a variety of styles, including pieces for wind ensembles, major choral works, chamber works (including electroacoustic pieces for Baroque flutist Stephen Schultz), ballet (“Whispers of Light” premiered this year at Bodiography Contemporary Ballet in Pittsburgh) and scared music. Galbraith is an accomplished pianist and organist and has written a number of works for those instruments.
Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts is owned and operated by Pittsburgh Symphony, Inc., a non-profit organization, and is the year-round home of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. The cornerstone of Pittsburgh’s Cultural District, Heinz Hall hosts many events that do not feature its world-renowned Orchestra including Broadway shows, comedians, speakers and much more. For a full calendar of upcoming non-symphony events at the hall, visit heinzhall.org.
Editors Please Note:
Friday, March 21 at 8 p.m.
Sunday, March 23 at 2:30 p.m.
Heinz Hall
PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
BNY MELLON GRAND CLASSICS
DONALD RUNNICLES, conductor
STEPHEN HOUGH, piano
Nancy Galbraith Euphonic Blues
Felix Mendelssohn Concerto No. 1 in G minor for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 25
I. Molto allegro con fuoco
II. Andante
III. Presto - Molto allegro e vivace
Richard Wagner Orchestral Highlights from Der Ring des Nibelungen
Ride of the Valkyries
Forest Murmurs
Siegfried's Rhine Journey
Siegfried's Funeral March
Brunhilde's Immolation Scene
###
Contact: Louise Sciannameo, Vice President of Public Affairs
Phone: 412.392.4866 | email: lsciannameo@pittsburghsymphony.org
Contact: Joyce DeFrancesco, Director of Media Relations
Phone: 412.392.4827 | email: jdefrancesco@pittsburghsymphony.org
Twitter: @pghsymphony |Facebook: facebook.com/PittsburghSymphonyOrchestra
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