ASO season kick-off is here

The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra kicks off the 2012/2013 concert season with the return of ASO and audience favorite, violinist Augustin Hadelich, performing Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole on Saturday, September 29 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, September 30 at 3 p.m. Music Director Philip Mann begins his third season with the ASO at the Robinson Center Music Hall – the first of the Stella Boyle Smith Masterworks Series. The program kicks off with Strauss’s Don Juan and continues with Dohnányi’s Suite in F-sharp minor before Augustin takes the stage for the second half of the concert. Concert-goers can hear more about Augustin Hadelich and the performance at the American Airlines Concert Conversation. Informances are free and are located in Robinson Room 102 one hour prior to each Masterworks concert. This concert is sponsored in part by American Airlines.

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 are free on Sundays with the purchase of an adult ticket. For more information, visit www.ArkansasSymphony.org.

 Program Details

ITALIAN VACATION

Saturday, September 29 at 8 p.m.

Sunday, September 30 at 3 p.m.

Robinson Center Music Hall

Featuring

Augustin Hadelich, violin

Philip Mann, Music Director

Arkansas Symphony Orchestra

Program:

Strauss - Don Juan, Op. 20
Dohnányi’s - Suite in F-sharp minor, Op. 19

Intermission

Lalo - Symphonie espagnole, Op. 21

Augustin Hadelich, violin

Consistently cited in the press for his “gorgeous tone,” “poetic communication” and “fast-fingered brilliance,” Augustin Hadelich has confirmed his place in the top echelon of young violinists. After a stellar debut with the New York Philharmonic under Alan Gilbert at the Bravo! Vail Valley Festival in 2010, he was immediately re-engaged to play in Vail in 2011.  He will return to Vail again in 2013.  Mr. Hadelich just played a sensational debut with the Boston Symphony at the Tanglewood Music Festival, and will make his New York Philharmonic subscription debut in October. 

Among his 2012/13 season highlights are debuts with the symphonies of Dallas, National/Washington, D.C., New Jersey, St. Louis, Buffalo, Milwaukee, Toronto, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.  Augustin Hadelich has also appeared with The Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, as well as the symphonies of Atlanta, Baltimore, Cincinnati and Houston, to name a few.  He has also performed extensively in Europe, South America and the Far East. 

Mr. Hadelich has recorded two CDs for AVIE: Flying Solo, a disc of masterworks for solo violin, and Echoes of Paris, a CD of French and Russian repertoire influenced by Parisian culture in the early 20^th century.  For Naxos, he has recorded Haydn’s complete violin concerti and Telemann’s complete Fantasies for Solo Violin.

The 2006 Gold medalist of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, Augustin Hadelich has also received an Avery Fisher Career Grant (2009) and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship in the UK (2011).  Most recently, he received Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award. 

Mr. Hadelich plays on the 1723 “Ex-Kiesewetter” Stradivari violin, on loan from Clement and Karen Arrison through the generous efforts of the Stradivari Society.

  

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.