Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Continues BeethovenFest This Weekend

PITTSBURGH - Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's BeethovenFest triumphantly returns this weekend, February 20 & 22 with its second weekend, "BeethovenFest: The Hero." Part of the BNY Mellon Grand Classics, Music Director Manfred Honeck leads the orchestra and guest pianist Lars Vogt in a diverse program of works by the great composer.

"BeethovenFest: The Hero" highlights Beethoven's transition from acolyte to revolutionary after Mozart's death, who is said to have been a grand influence on his early work. After to moving to Vienna to study under Haydn and the onset of his hearing loss, Beethoven dramatically changed styles and wrote more explosively in his third symphony, "Eroica," when compared to his Mozartean first symphony.

Guest artist for Beethoven's first piano concerto Lars Vogt joins the Pittsburgh Symphony for the first time since 2012 in the midst of a bustling season. Vogt first came to public attention after winning second prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition and has enjoyed an international career ever since.

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 were created. Each concert will be followed by a free on-stage performance of selections from Beethoven's String Quartet No. 4, Opus 18 by Pittsburgh Symphony members Christopher Wu, Zhan Shu, Meng Wang and Anne Martindale Williams. Sunday's performance features a pre-concert ensemble from The Ellis School playing in the Heinz Hall's Grand Lobby beginning at 1:15 p.m.

The concert begins at 7:30 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 visiting pittsburghsymphony.org.

The Pittsburgh Symphony would like to recognize and thank BNY Mellon for its 2014-2015 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.

Manfred Honeck has served as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra since the 2008-2009 season. After two extensions, his contract now runs until the end of the 2019-2020 season. To great acclaim, Honeck and his orchestra perform regularly for European audiences. Since 2010, annual tour performances have led them to numerous European music capitals and major music festivals, including Rheingau Musik Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn, Musikfest Berlin, Grafenegg Festival, Lucerne Festival and the BBC Proms. Several recordings, amongst them Mahler's Symphony No. 4, which won a 2012 International Classical Music Award, are available on Japanese label Exton. Honeck's successful work with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is now captured by Reference Recordings. The first SACD - of Strauss tone poems - was released in fall 2013 and received rave reviews. The second recording, of Dvorak's Symphony No. 8 and the Symphonic Suite from Jana?ek's opera Jenüfa, conceptualized by Honeck himself, followed in summer 2014 and was likewise enthusiastically received. Several additional recordings are completed and it is expected that two releases will be issued per year. Born in Austria, Honeck received his musical training at the Academy of Music in Vienna. Many years of experience as a member of the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera Orchestra and at the helm of the Vienna Jeunesse Orchestra have given his conducting a distinctive stamp. He began his career as assistant to Claudio Abbado in Vienna. Subsequently, he was engaged by the Zurich Opera House, where he was bestowed the prestigious European Conductor's Award in 1993. Other early stations of his career include Leipzig, where he was one of three main conductors of the MDR Symphony Orchestra and Oslo, where he assumed the post of music director at the Norwegian National Opera on short notice for a year and was engaged as principal guest conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra for several years. From 2000 to 2006, he was music director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm and, from 2008 to 2011, principal guest conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he has resumed for another three years at the beginning of the 2013-2014 season. As a guest conductor, Honeck has worked with leading international orchestras such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Staatskapelle Dresden, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Accademia di Santa Cecilia Rome and the Vienna Philharmonic. Orchestras he conducted in the United States include New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra and Boston Symphony Orchestra. He also is a regular guest at the Verbier Festival. In February 2013, he had his successful debut with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the direct result of which was a CD recording together with Anne-Sophie Mutter (works of Dvorak). The current season sees returns to Bamberg, Stuttgart, Rome and New York as well as to the Vienna Symphony (a CD of works by the Strauss family was released in summer 2013) and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. He also will conduct Tonhalleorchester Zürich and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, amongst others. Honeck has received honorary doctorates from St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., and, most recently, from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He has been artistic director of the "International Concerts Wolfegg" in Germany for more than 15 years.

Lars Vogt has rapidly established himself as one of the leading pianists of his generation. Born in the German town of Düren in 1970, he first came to public attention when he won second prize at the 1990 Leeds International Piano Competition and has enjoyed a varied career for nearly 25 years. His versatility as an artist ranges from the core classical repertoire of Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms to the romantics Grieg, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov through to the dazzling Lutoslawski concerto. Vogt is now increasingly working with orchestras both as conductor and directing from the keyboard. His recent appointment as music director of the Royal Northern Sinfonia at the Sage, Gateshead, from the 2015-2016 season reflects this new development in his career. During his prestigious career, Vogt has performed with many of the world's great orchestras including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, NHK Symphony and Orchestre de Paris. He has collaborated with some of the world's most prestigious conductors including Sir Simon Rattle, Mariss Jansons, Claudio Abbado and Andris Nelsons. His special relationship with the Berlin Philharmonic has continued with regular collaborations following his appointment as their first-ever "pianist in residence" in 2003-2004. Highlights of Lars Vogt's 2014-2015 season include the opening of the Royal Northern Sinfonia's season conducting Beethoven and Brahms followed by a program of Jana?ek, Schumann and Dvo?ák in April 2015. In Europe, he performs concerti with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Vienna Symphony, Czech Philharmonic and Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra as well as the London Philharmonic under Yannick Nezet-Seguin both in London and on tour in Germany. In North America, he appears with the Philadelphia Orchestra and with Boston Symphony under their new music director, Andris Nelsons. South America also features strongly this season with concerts in São Paolo, Brasilia, Mexico City and Bogota. He is a key soloist in the Deutschekammerphilharmonie Bremen's Brahms cycle conducted by Paavo Jarvi with performances of the Brahms piano concerti at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York and the Tanglewood and Lanaudiere Festivals as well as in Tokyo's Opera City Hall. He returns to Japan at the end of the season for concerts with the New Japan Philharmonic under Daniel Harding. Vogt enjoys a high profile as a chamber musician and in June 1998 he founded his own chamber festival in the village of Heimbach near Cologne. Known as "Spannungen," the concerts take place in an art-nouveau hydro-electric power station. Its huge success has been marked by the release of 10 live recordings on EMI. He has enjoyed regular partnerships with colleagues such as Christian and Tanya Tetzlaff and Thomas Quasthoff and collaborates occasionally with actor Klaus-Maria Brandauer and comedian Konrad Beikircher. Vogt is a passionate advocate of making music an essential life force in the community. In 2005, he established a major educational program, "Rhapsody in School," which brings his colleagues to schools across Germany and Austria, thereby connecting children with inspiring world-class musicians. Vogt is also an accomplished and enthusiastic teacher and in 2013 was appointed professor of piano at the Hannover Conservatory of Music, succeeding Karl-Heinz Kämmerling, his former teacher and close friend. As an EMI recording artist, Vogt made 15 discs for the label. Recent recordings include solo Schubert for CAvi-music and Mozart Concerti with the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra for Oehms, a solo Liszt and Schumann disc on the Berlin Classics label and Mozart Sonatas with Christian Tetzlaff for Ondine.

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, known for its artistic excellence for more than 119 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. 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

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