CSO Welcomes Guest Pianist Stewart Goodyear for 'Themes & Variations' 3/16-17

CSO Music Director Jean-Marie Zeitouni leads the Columbus Symphony in three of the most popular orchestral examples of creative and appealing musical "conversations" in the Themes & Variations program. The program includes Brahms' Academic Festival Overture, Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor featuring guest pianist Stewart Goodyear, and Elgar's Variations on an Original Theme, "Enigma Variations."

WOSU's Christopher Purdy will hold a free, pre-concert lecture about the program for ticket holders at 7pm each night on the fourth floor of the Ohio Theatre's Galbreath Pavilion.

The Columbus Symphony presents Themes & Variations at the Ohio Theatre (39 E. State St.) on Friday and Saturday, March 16 and 17, at 8pm daily. Tickets are $24.75-$68 and can be purchased at the Ohio Theatre Ticket Office (39 E. State St.), all Ticketmaster outlets, and www.ticketmaster.com. To purchase tickets by phone, please call (614) 228-8600 or (800) 745-3000. The Ohio Theatre Ticket Office will also be open two hours prior to each performance. Students between the ages of 13-19 may purchase $5 PNC Arts Alive All Access tickets while available.

The 2011-12 Masterworks Series is made possible through the generous support of season sponsor Battelle.

A graduate of the Montreal Conservatory, Jean-Marie Zeitouni has emerged as one of Canada's brightest young conductors with an eloquent yet fiery style in repertoire ranging from Baroque to contemporary music. He was installed as Music Director of the Columbus Symphony in October 2010, and also serves as principal conductor and artistic director designate of I Musici de Montréal, a prestigious Canadian chamber orchestra. Jean-Marie also enjoys a long association with Les Violons du Roy, a celebrated chamber orchestra based in Quebec City, first as conductor-in-residence, then as associate conductor, and since 2008, as principal guest conductor. Over the years, he has led the ensemble in more than 200 performances in the province of Québec, across Canada, and in Mexico. In 2006, he recorded his first CD with Les Violons du Roy entitled Piazzolla which received a 2007 JUNO Award for Classical Album of the Year in the category of Solo or Chamber Ensemble. They also recorded two subsequent CDs-Bartok (2008) and Britten (2010).

Known for imagination, a graceful, elegant style and exquisite technique, Stewart Goodyear is an accomplished young artist whose career spans many genres-concerto soloist, chamber musician, recitalist and composer. He has performed with many of the major orchestras of the world-including six separate appearances to date with the Philadelphia Orchestra. In addition to his talents as a pianist, Goodyear is a composer and frequently performs his own works, including his solo piano work, "Variations on 'Eleanor Rigby'," which premiered at Lincoln Center in New York in August 2000, and his Piano Sonata, both of which have received continual acclaim by critics and audiences alike. Goodyear has been noted for his innovation and is one of the rare classical musicians to always improvise his cadenzas when performing concertos from the classical period. He has been repeatedly praised for both the inspiring individuality and appreciation of the composer's own style that he clearly conveys in every performance. A native of Toronto, Stewart holds a Masters Degree from the Juilliard School of Music studying with Oxana Yablonskaya. He previously studied at the Curtis Institute of Music with Leon Fleisher, Gary Graffman, and Claude Frank.

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