Elisso Bolkvadze to perform with ASO

The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra will perform with fiery Georgian pianist Elisso Bolkvadze on Saturday, October 20 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, October 21 at 3 p.m. at the Robinson Center Music Hall. This is the second concert of the Stella Boyle Smith Masterworks Series and is sponsored in part by University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

The concert opens with To the Point by Jennifer Higdon, ASO Composer of the Year. Then Bolkvadze continues the program with Saint-Saëns much-loved 2nd concerto. ASO Music Director Philip Mann describes the work as, “full of captivating dance rhythms, grand flourishes, and melodies that stick with you.” The ASO then takes center stage again for the remainder of the program with Sibelius’s marvelous and influential 5^th Symphony.

Concert-goers can learn more about the program before the concert at the American Airlines Concert Conversation. These informances are free and are located in Robinson Room 102 one hour prior to each Masterworks concert.

Tickets range from $14-$52 and can be purchased online at www.ArkansasSymphony.org or over the phone at (501) 666-1761. Thanks to the Entergy Kids Ticket, all kids through 12^th grade are free on Sundays with the purchase of an adult ticket. For more information, visit www.ArkansasSymphony.org.

Program Details

VIBRANT VIRTUOSITY

Saturday, October 20 at 8 p.m.

Sunday, October 21 at 3 p.m.

Robinson Center Music Hall

Featuring

Elisso Bolkvadze, piano

Philip Mann, Music Director

Arkansas Symphony Orchestra

Program:

Jennifer Higdon                                To the Point

Saint-Saëns                        Concerto for Piano No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 22
Intermission

Sibelius                                 Symphony No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 82

Elisso Bolkvadze, piano

Elisso Bolkvadze won numerous international piano competitions, such as Van Cliburn (USA), Vianna da Motta (Lisbon, Portugal), Axa International Piano Competition (Dublin, Ireland), Marguerite Long (Paris, France).

A superstar in her country of birth in Georgia, Elisso has been awarded by Georgian Government “The award of Georgian Government” and “Cultural Merit.” After she enjoyed great success at Van Cliburn International Contest, she plays many concerts in top auditorium through the world, like Kennedy Centre (Washington), Pasadena Auditorium (Los Angeles), Santa Fe Festival, Miami Arts In Florida, Orange County Center, Salle Pleyel, Salle Gaveau (Paris) Gewandhaus Orchestra (Leipzig) Radio France Orchestra, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra (Russia), Herkulessaal (Munich) Alte Oper (Frankfurt), National Philharmonic of Ukraine, Georgian National Orchestra, Prague Symphony Orchestra, and Theatre de Champs Elysees (Paris).

Elisso Bolkvadze collaborated with famous conductors, such as Peter Altrichter, Saulius Sondeckis, Djanzug Khakidze, Michel Tabachnik, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Laurent Petitgirard, Mihkel Kutson, Mykola Diadiura and many others. French national TV - LCI realized a full documentary film about Elisso in Georgia and in Paris. She also regularly appears on Mezzo.

Recent highlights of 2010-11 include numerous festivals, such as Ljubljana Festival, Ravello Festival (Italy), Sofia International Festival, concerts with Orchestra Colonne at Salle Pleyel and Salle Gaveau (Paris, France), Vilnius Philharmonic Orchestra (Lithuania), Cyprus Symphony Orchestra, and season opening with Tiroler Symphony orchestra Innsbruck (Austria). For 2011 and 2012 the pianist is scheduled to perform Mozart's Concert No. 21, Rachmaninov No. 2, Haydn, Prokofiev and Saint-Saëns No. 2, as well as season opening with Ukrainian National Orchestra, Kammerorchester Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in Berlin, Karol Szymanowski Philharmonic in Cracow, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Geneva, Athens and open air concert in Tsinandali, Georgia. Elisso Bolkvadze's last CD “Saint-Saëns Concert No.2,” released by Cascavelle label, has met great critical acclaim in the international media.

Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, in the family of literary, Elisso Bolkvadze began to play piano in very early age. She performed her first concert with orchestra at the age of seven. She studied at Tbilisi Conservatory with Professor T. Amiredjibi. Elisso Bolkvadze attended master classes with Tatiana Nikolaeva in Moscow. She later continued her studies with a Professor and Composer Michel Sogny in France and in Austria, who became an important influence on her playing. Elisso enjoys very much to help young Georgian pianists through the “Foundation SOS Talents – Michel Sogny,” and contributes to their first steps in future career.

Philip Mann, Music Director

Hailed by the BBC as a “talent to watch out for, who conveys a mature command of his forces,” American conductor Philip Mann is quickly gaining a worldwide reputation as an “expressively graceful yet passionate” artist with a range spanning opera, symphonic repertoire, new music, and experimental collaborations.  Philip is in his third season as Music Director of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, which has seen audience and artistic growth, new energy, and financial health under his tenure.  Formerly as the San Diego Symphony’s Associate Conductor, he conducted hundreds of performances of Jacobs Subscription Masterworks, Symphony Exposed, family, young people’s concerts, Kinder Konzert, pops, and other special programs and projects.  As an American Conducting Fellow, the San Diego Union Tribune raved, “Mann was masterful… a skilled musical architect, designing and executing a beautifully paced interpretation, which seemed to spring from somewhere deep within the music rather than superimposed upon it.”

As winner of the Vienna Philharmonic’s Karajan Fellowship at the Salzburg Festival, Mann has relationships with orchestras and operas worldwide: including the Cleveland Orchestra, l’Orchestre symphonique de Québec, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Georgian State Opera, and the National Symphony of Cyprus. His recent Beethoven 9 was described as “Titanic” and his Canadian debut with the OSQ was dubbed by Le Soleil as a “Tour de Force” and led to an immediate reengagement in 2013.  Other upcoming engagements include the Grand Rapids Symphony, New Mexico Philharmonic, Little Orchestra Society of NY, and the Georgian State Opera. Previously, the music director of the Oxford City Opera and Oxford Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra, he has also held conducting positions with the Music in the Mountains Festival and Indianapolis Symphony. Mann has worked with leading artists such as Joshua Bell, Sharon Isbin, Dmitri Alexeev, Midori,  and Marvin Hamlisch and has given premiers of major composers including John Corigliano, Jennifer Higdon, Michael Torke, Lucas Richman, and many others.   He maintains a lively schedule as a guest conductor having conducted at New York’s Avery Fischer Hall and London’s Barbican Center.

Elected a Rhodes Scholar, Mann studied and taught at Oxford, and has served as assistant conductor to Franz Welser-Möst, Simon Rattle, Leonard Slatkin, Jaime Laredo, Mario Venzago, Bramwell Tovey, Pinchas Zukerman, and many others. At Oxford, he won the annual competition to become principal conductor of the Oxford University Philharmonia. Under his leadership, the Philharmonia’s performances and tours received international press and acclaim. Mann studied with Alan Hazeldine of London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Colin Metters at the Royal Academy of Music, and Marios Papadopolous of the Oxford Philomusica. He worked with Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center’s National Conducting Institute and Michael Tilson Thomas at the New World Symphony. Mentorship with Esa-Pekka Salonen and Jorma Panula followed at the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Conducting Masterclasses, and Robert Spano with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s international Mozart Requiem masterclass for the League of American Orchestras annual conference. He has also worked under Imre Pallo, David Effron, John Poole, and Thomas Baldner at Indiana University, where he was appointed visiting lecturer in orchestral conducting, and worked as assistant conductor at the IU Opera Theater. Additional studies came under the Bolshoi Theater’s music director, Alexander Vedernikov at the Moscow State Conservatory, Gustav Meir, Kenneth Keisler, and with Pulitzer Prize winning composer Robert Ward. He is the recipient of numerous awards including commendations from several cities, and the state of California.

Arkansas Symphony Orchestra

The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra celebrates its 47^th season in 2012-2013 under the leadership of Music Director Philip Mann. ASO is the resident orchestra of Robinson Center Music Hall, and performs more than thirty concerts each year for more than 42,000 people through its Stella Boyle Smith Masterworks Series, ACXIOM Pops LIVE! Series and River Rhapsodies Chamber Series, in addition to serving central Arkansas through numerous community outreach programs and bringing live symphonic music education to over 24,000 school children and over 200 schools.