6 Friday / May 6, 2016

Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra with Menahem Pressler, Roberto Abbado, conductor

8 p.m.
Musical Arts Center
http://music.indiana.edu/events/?e=78541

Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra

Roberto Abbado, conductor

featuring Menahem Pressler, piano

Repertoire
Brahms: Tragic Overture, Op. 81
W. A. Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-Flat Major, K.595
R. Schumann: Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Op. 61

This Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra performance is sponsored by the Indiana University Office of the President.

About the Artists

Roberto Abbado (conductor)

Recently appointed as the Music Director at Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia and acclaimed as “a conductor you want to hear again and again,” Roberto Abbado’s crisp, dramatic music-making, instinctive lyricism, and evocative command of varied composers and styles have made him an esteemed conductor among orchestras and opera companies today. He is both a sophisticated and energetic conductor, which combined with superb communicative skills have made him a favorite among musicians and the public alike.

In 2009, Mr. Abbado was honoured with the Franco Abbiati Award of the National Association of Italian Music Critics – Italy’s most prestigious classical music award – as Conductor of the Year “for the maturity of interpretation and for his breadth and curiosity of repertoire in which he has delivered remarkable results and an intensity which was manifested in La Clemenza di Tito by Mozart (Teatro Regio Torino) executed using classical period performance practices; in the contemporary opera Phaedra by Hans Werner Henze (Maggio Musicale Fiorentino); in Rossini’s Ermione (Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro); and for the rare Der Vampyr of Heinrich Marschner (Teatro Comunale Bologna).”

A popular figure in the United States, Mr. Abbado’s most extensive relationship is currently with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, where he is an artistic partner, a position that has now been extended into an unprecedented third three-year term. He has performed regularly with the Atlanta and St. Louis symphony orchestras and has appeared often with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Houston Symphony, and San Francisco Symphony, as well as with New York City’s Orchestra of St. Luke’s.

Roberto Abbado’s 2011-12 season included a triumphal performance of Rossini’s La Donna del Lago at la Scala, Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust, staged by Terry Gilliam at Teatro Massimo in Palermo, and Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, staged by Graham Vick at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

In 2012, he was awarded again by the National Association of Italian Music Critics with the Franco Abbiati Prize for Mosè in Egitto at the Rossini Opera Festival as Best Performance and Production.

Roberto Abbado began season 2012-13 with Mozart’s Don Giovanni at Bari’s historic Teatro Petruzzelli, staged by Mario Martone, followed by Ponchielli’s La Gioconda at Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera in a new production by Pierluigi Pizzi. He has opened the Verdi’s year with a new production of Macbeth by Bob Wilson at Teatro Comunale in Bologna and then he took on tour to Hong Kong the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, performing La Traviata, staged by Ferzan Özpetek, and an all Verdi program. Mr. Abbado has also conducted a new production of Mozart’s Così Fan Tutte, staged by Davide Livermore, at Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari.

In seasons 2013-14 and 2014-15, he conducted Maometto II at Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera, Parsifal and Macbeth at Teatro Comunale in Bologna, a concert version of La Favorite at the prestigious Salzurger Festspiele, Don Pasquale and Samson et Dalila at Palau de les Arts in Valencia, Lucia di Lammermoor at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Norma at Teatro Regio di Torino, and Rigoletto at the Metropolitan in New York.

On the concert platform he conducted, among others, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai, Orchestra del Teatro Comunale in Bologna, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, New World Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra.

Born into a dynastic musical family, his grandfather was a famous pedagogue of violin, his father was director of the Milan Conservatory, and his uncle is Claudio Abbado, the esteemed maestro. Roberto Abbado studied with renowned conducting teacher Franco Ferrara at Venice’s La Fenice and Rome’s Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, where he was the only student in the the Accademia’s history to be invited to conduct the Orchestra di Santa Cecilia. As chief conductor of the Munich Radio Orchestra (1991-98), he made seven recordings with the orchestra, and has worked extensively elsewhere in Europe, including the Royal Concertgebouw, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Paris, Dresden Staatskapelle, Gewandhaus Orchester (Leipzieg), NDR Symphony Orchestra (Hamburg), Vienna Symphony, Swedish Radio Symphony, and Israel Philarmonic Orchestras. In his native Italy, he has particularly strong relationships with the great orchestras and regularly conducts the Filarmonica della Scala (Milan), Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome), Orchestra del Maggio Musicale (Florence), and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI (Torino).

Mr. Abbado made his North American concert debut it 1991 with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at the Lincoln Center in New York. Since then he has returned regularly, conducting many top orchestras. As a gifted accompanist conductor, he collaborates with many of today’s most respected soloists, including violinists Joshua Bell, Sarah Chang, Kennedy, Midori, Vadim Repin, Gil Shaham, and pianists Alfred Brendel, Yefim Bronfman, Lang Lang, Radu Lupu, Andras Schiff, Mitsuko Uchida, Andre Watts, duo pianists Katia & Marielle Labèque, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, to name but a few.

Well known for his work in opera, Mr. Abbado has led many new productions and world premieres, including Fedora at the Metropolitan Opera (New York); I Vespri Siciliani at Vienna Staatsoper; La Gioconda and Lucia di Lammermoor at Teatro alla Scala (Milan); L’Amour des trois oranges, Aida and La Traviata for the Bayerische Staatsoper (Munich); Simon Boccanegra and La Clemenza di Tito with the Teatro Regio di Torino; Le Comte Ory, Attila, I Lombardi and Henze’s Phaedra at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; La Donna del lago at the Paris Opéra; Don Giovanni at the Deutsche Oper (Berlin).

Mr. Abbado is also well known as a passionate interpreter of modern and contemporary music. As a natural advocate for Italian composers, he frequently programs works by Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, and Goffredo Petrassi, and contemporary Italians such as Sylvano Bussotti, Niccolò Castiglioni, Azio Corghi, Ivan Fedele, Luca Francesconi, Giorgio Battistelli, Michele Dall’Ongaro, Giacomo Manzoni, Salvatore Sciarrino, and notably Fabio Vacchi, for whom Mr. Abbado conducted the world premiere of his new Teneke at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala in 2007.

Not limited to Italian contemporary music, he also explores the music of French contemporary composers Pascal Dusapin, Henri Dutilleux and Olivier Messiaen, Russian Alfred Schnittke, German Hans Werner Henze and Helmut Lachenmann and, in part due to his extensive travels among North American orchestras, an eclectic assortment of this continent’s living composers from Ned Rorem to Christopher Rouse, Steven Stucky, Charles Wuorinen.

A prolific recording conductor, Mr. Abbado has made several recording for BMG (RCA Red Seal), including award-winning performances of Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi (BBC Magazine “Pick of the Year 1999”) and Rossini’s Tancredi (Echo Klassic Deutscher Schallplattenpreis 1997). He recorded a recital disc of 19th-century arias for Decca with tenor Juan Diego Flórez and the Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia, titled The Rubini Album, and most recently a recital album titled Bel Canto with mezzo soprano Elina Garanca, on Deutsche Grammophon (Echo Klassic Deutscher Schallplattenpreis 2009).

Menahem Pressler (piano)

Menahem Pressler, founding member and pianist of the Beaux Arts Trio, has established himself among the world’s most distinguished and honored musicians with a career that spans almost six decades. Now, at 91 years old, he continues to captivate audiences throughout the world as performer and pedagogue, performing solo and chamber music recitals to great critical acclaim while maintaining a dedicated and robust teaching career.

Born in Magdeburg, Germany, in 1923, Pressler fled Nazi Germany in 1939 and emigrated to Israel. Pressler’s world-renowned career was launched after he was awarded first prize at the Debussy International Piano Competition in San Francisco in 1946. This was followed by his successful American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Eugene Ormandy. Since then, Pressler’s extensive tours of North America and Europe have included performances with the orchestras of New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Dallas, San Francisco, London, Paris, Brussels, Oslo, Helsinki, and many others.

After nearly a decade of an illustrious and praised solo career, the 1955 Berkshire Music Festival saw Menahem Pressler’s debut as a chamber musician, where he appeared as pianist with the Beaux Arts Trio. This collaboration quickly established Pressler’s reputation as one of the world’s most revered chamber musicians. With Pressler at the Trio’s helm as the only pianist for nearly 55 years, The New York Times described the Beaux Arts Trio as “in a class by itself” and The Washington Post exclaimed that “since its founding more than 50 years ago, the Beaux Arts Trio has become the gold standard for trios throughout the world.” The 2007-2008 season was nothing short of bitter-sweet, as violinist Daniel Hope, cellist Antonio Meneses, and Menahem Pressler took their final bows as the Beaux Arts Trio, which marked the end of one of the most celebrated and revered chamber music careers of all time. What saw the end of a one artistic legacy also witnessed the beginning of another, as Pressler continues to dazzle audiences throughout the world, both as piano soloist and collaborating chamber musician, including performances with the Juilliard, Emerson, American, and Cleveland Quartets, among many others. Of his recent solo performance in Austria, Die Presse wrote: “he struck a tone that was long believed lost already, a tone we perhaps last heard from Wilhelm Kempff.” His upcoming solo concertizing engagements include performances with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Orchestra de Paris, and the Concertgebow Orchestra, among others.

For nearly 60 years, Menahem Pressler has taught on the piano faculty at the world-renowned Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he currently holds the rank of distinguished professor of music as the Charles Webb Chair. Equally as illustrious as his performing career, Professor Pressler has been hailed as “master pedagogue” and has had prize-winning students in all of the major international piano competitions, including the Queen Elizabeth, Busoni, Rubenstein, Leeds, and VanCliburn competitions, among many others. His former students grace the faculties of prestigious schools of music across the world and have become some of the most prominent and influential artist-teachers today. In addition to teaching his private students at Indiana University, he continuously presents master classes throughout the world and continues to serve on the jury of many major international piano competitions.

Among his numerous honors and awards, Pressler has received honorary doctorates from the Manhattan School of Music, the University of Nebraska, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the North Carolina School of the Arts, six Grammy nominations (including one in 2006), lifetime achievement awards from Gramophone magazine and the International Chamber Music Association, Chamber Music America’s Distinguished Service Award, the Gold Medal of Merit from the National Society of Arts and Letters. He has also been awarded the German Critics Ehrenurkunde Award and elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2007, Pressler was appointed as an honorary fellow of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance in recognition of a lifetime of performance and leadership in music. In 2005, Pressler received two additional awards of international merit: the German President’s Deutsche Bundesverdienstkreuz (German Cross of Merit) First Class, Germany’s highest honor, and France’s highest cultural honor, the Commandeur in the Order of Arts and Letters Award. His more recent honors and awards include the prestigious Wigmore Medal (2011), the Menuhin Prize, given by the Queen of Spain (2012), inductions into the American Classical Music and Gramophone Magazine Halls of Fame (2012), and the Music Teachers National Association Achievement Award.

In addition to recording nearly the entire piano chamber repertoire with the Beaux Arts Trio on the Philips label, Menahem Pressler has compiled over 30 solo recordings ranging from the works of Bach to Ben Haim.

Cost: $10, General Admission

For more information contact:

The Jacobs School of Music
812-855-7433
[email protected]

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