For Immediate Release
November 5, 2015
PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OFFERS FREE COMMUNITY CONCERT ON NOVEMBER 20 AT HEINZ HALL
PITTSBURGH – The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is offering a free community concert at Heinz Hall on Friday, November 20 at 7 p.m. during the annual Light Up Night celebration in downtown Pittsburgh.
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| Nathan Meltzer |
Reserve your free tickets in advance at the Heinz Hall box office, online at pittsburghsymphony.org or by calling 412-392-4900. Tickets also will be available on the night of the performance. This event is general admission with seating on a first come, first served basis.
This concert is made possible by annual funding from the Allegheny Regional Asset District.
About the Artistsath
Recently named music director of Tulsa’s Signature Symphony at TCC and assistant conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Andrés Franco has established himself as a conductor to watch. He is in his fifth season as principal conductor of the multimedia project Caminos del Inka and his third season as artistic director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra’s Summer Festival, “Concerts in the Garden.”
Franco’s 2014-2015 highlights included subscription debuts with the Columbus and Fort Worth symphony orchestras, as well as return engagements with the Houston and Saint Louis symphonies. In 2015-2016, he will
make subscription debuts with the Chicago Sinfonietta and the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra, and will return to conduct the Corpus Christi and Fort Worth symphony orchestras.
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| Andres Franco |
A frequent guest conductor in the U.S., Europe and South America, Franco has appeared with the Elgin, El Paso, Eugene, Lake Forest, Mississippi, Springfield and Stockton symphony orchestras, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León/Spain and the National Symphony Orchestra of Peru, as well as with the National Symphony, Bogota Philharmonic, Medellin Philharmonic and EAFIT Symphony Orchestra in Colombia.
Festival appearances include the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, the Oregon Bach Festival and the Wintergreen Music Festival in Virginia. Franco formerly served as music director of the Philharmonia of Kansas City (2004-2010), associate and resident conductor of the Fort Worth Symphony (2009-2014), and Leonard Slatkin’s assistant conductor during the 14th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (2013).
A native of Colombia, Franco is dedicated to preserving and performing the music of the Americas. As principal conductor of Caminos del Inka, he has led many performances of Latin American music by composers of our time, such as Jimmy López, Diego Luzuriaga and the popular Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla.
Born into a musical family, Franco began piano studies with his father, Jorge Franco. An accomplished pianist, he studied with Van Cliburn Gold Medalist Jose Feghali and attended piano workshops with Rudolph Buchbinder in Switzerland and Lev Naumov in France. He studied conducting with Marin Alsop, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Kurt Masur, Gustav Meier, Helmut Rilling, Gerard Schwarz and Leonard Slatkin.
Franco holds a bachelor’s degree in piano performance from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia, as well as Master of Music degrees in piano performance and conducting from Texas Christian University. Franco is married to Victoria Luperi, principal clarinetist in the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra.
Fifteen-year-old Nathan Meltzer attends the Professional Performing Arts School in New York and studies on a Starling scholarship at Juilliard with Itzhak Perlman and Li Lin. He began his music education in a second-grade orchestra class in Austria, joined the "Violin Virtuosi" at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in 2011, and entered the Perlman Music Program in 2013. Meltzer has played on NPR’s From the Top; appeared with The Piano Guys at Carnegie Hall; performed alongside Gilles Apap, David Chan and Augustine Hadelich; and had lessons and master classes with Joshua Bell, Pamela Frank and Jaime Laredo, among others. He has performed in Buenos Aires, Quebec, São Paulo, Tel Aviv, Vienna and across the United States, including solo engagements with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Bloomington Symphony, the Charlotte Civic Orchestra, the Evansville Philharmonic and the Muncie Symphony. Meltzer plays an 1844 Italian violin by Johannes Pressenda on generous loan from Juilliard.
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| Brian Vu |
Claudia Rosenthal is a first-year resident artist in 2015-2016 at the Pittsburgh Opera, and is scheduled to perform as Amy/”Little Women” and Berta/”The Barber of Seville” (including the student matinee). In summer 2015, as a young artist with Opera on the Avalon, she appeared as the Governess/”The Turn of the Screw.” She
has been a vocal fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, and performed Cobweb/”A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and Stella/”Les contes d’Hoffmannas” as a studio artist with Wolf Trap Opera Company. At Yale Opera, Rosenthal’s roles included Giulietta/”I Capuleti e i Montecchi,” Musetta/”La bohème,” Clorinda/”La Cenerentola” and Brigitta/”Iolanta.” While with Mannes Opera, she appeared as Nannetta/”Falstaff” and Norina/”Don Pasquale.” She also made her Carnegie Hall debut performing Hindemith’s cantata “Die Serenaden” with Yale in New York City, and made her professional debut as soprano soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. An Eastern regional finalist and recipient of the Rohatyn Great Promise Award at the 2015 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, she also recently received First Prize in the Young Patronesses of the Opera Competition. Other honors include the Richard F. Gold Career Grant, the Career Bridges Grant and the Yale School of Music Alumni Prize. A native of Scarsdale, New York, Rosenthal double-majored in music and art history at Yale College, and has further degrees from The Hartt School, Mannes College the New School for Music, and The Yale School of Music.
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| Claudia Rosenthal |
The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, known for its artistic excellence for more than 120 years, is credited with a rich history of the world’s finest conductors and musicians, and a strong commitment to the Pittsburgh region and its citizens. Past music directors have included Fritz Reiner (1938-1948), William Steinberg (1952-1976), Andre Previn (1976-1984), Lorin Maazel (1984-1996) and Mariss Jansons (1995-2004). This tradition of outstanding international music directors was furthered in fall 2008, when Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck became music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony. The orchestra has been at the forefront of championing new American works, and gave the first performance of Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1 “Jeremiah” in 1944 and John Adams’ “Short Ride in a Fast Machine” in 1986. The Pittsburgh Symphony has a long and illustrious history in the areas of recordings and radio concerts. As early as 1936, the Pittsburgh Symphony broadcast on the airwaves coast-to-coast and in the late 1970s it made the ground breaking PBS series “Previn and the Pittsburgh.” The orchestra has received increased national attention since 1982 through network radio broadcasts on Public Radio International, produced by Classical WQED-FM 89.3, made possible by the musicians of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. With a long and distinguished history of touring both domestically and overseas since 1900 — including 36 international tours to Europe, the Far East and South America — the Pittsburgh Symphony continues to be critically acclaimed as one of the world’s greatest orchestras.
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 also hosts many other 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, November 20 at 7 p.m.
Heinz Hall
PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
ANDRÉS FRANCO, conductor
BRIAN VU, baritone
CLAUDIA ROSENTHAL, soprano
NATHAN MELTZER, violin
Antonin Dvorak Carnival Overture, Opus 92
Camille Saint-Saëns Introduction and Rondo capriccioso in A minor for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 28
Mr. Meltzer
Johann Strauss, Jr. Overture to Die Fledermaus (The Bat), Opus 362
Johann Strauss, Jr. “Mein Herr Marquis” (Laughing Song) from Die Fledermaus
Ms. Rosenthal
Franz Lehar “Lippen schweigen” from The Merry Widow
Mr. Vu
Ms. Rosenthal
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Suite from The Nutcracker, Opus 71a
March
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
Chinese Dance
III. Waltz of the Flowers
Johann Strauss, Sr. Radetzky March, Opus 228
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