Wallfisch to Conduct North Carolina Symphony, 3/25-26

Conductor Benjamin Wallfisch will lead the North Carolina Symphony, guest pianist Christopher Taylor and the North Carolina Master Chorale in a "Composer Portraits" tribute to American trailblazer John Adams. The concert takes place at Meymandi Concert Hall in downtown Raleigh's Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts on Friday and Saturday, March 25-26, at 8:00 p.m.

Wallfisch replaces North Carolina Symphony Music Director Grant Llewellyn, who is remaining at home in Wales while his wife Charlotte recuperates from an unanticipated surgery.

Hailed by The Strad magazine as "one of the finest accompanists anywhere on the podium," conductor and composer Benjamin Wallfisch has performed with many of the finest orchestras from London to Los Angeles and beyond. He launched his career by earning a unanimous vote for first prize in the 2001 British Reserve Insurance Conducting Competition. He was soon after appointed associate conductor of the English Chamber Orchestra and, between 2003 and 2005, served as assistant conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic.

The London native, a graduate with distinction of the Royal Academy of Music, has worked with world-renowned conductors and soloists from Leonard Slatkin to Branford Marsalis and John Williams. He has also established a singular reputation for his skill in the movies; he orchestrated and conducted the scores for Atonement, V for Vendetta, Pride & Prejudice and the just-released adaptation of Jane Eyre, among many notable film credits.

"We're delighted to welcome Maestro Wallfisch to North Carolina, and are so grateful that he is able to take on this demanding program on such short notice," says Scott Freck, North Carolina Symphony Vice President for Artistic Operations and General Manager. "Musically this is quite a mountain to climb, but we're all confident that under his baton the concerts will be a triumph."

The particular challenge of this assignment is the extreme difficulty of the pieces on the concert program. The lineup includes music by three composers who were inspirational forces on Adams, including a little-known masterwork by Beethoven, Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage. Two technically demanding 20th century works follow: Benjamin Britten's Young Apollo, a blazing piece for piano and strings, featuring celebrated pianist Christopher Taylor, and Charles Ives's mystical The Unanswered Question, a work so influential that Leonard Bernstein borrowed its title as the name for his famous series of lectures at Harvard in 1973.

And those compositions are only the beginning. They prelude three masterpieces by Adams, who has been described in The New Yorker as "the most vital and eloquent composer in America." His works are no easy feat to conduct, even for a conductor with plenty of time to prepare.

Taylor is featured for a second time in the rhapsodic Eros Piano, which is followed by the breakneck orchestral fanfare Short Ride on a Fast Machine. Finally, the Symphony and North Carolina Master Chorale perform the choral dynamite that is Adams's Harmonium, one of the most powerful compositions to hear live in a concert hall. Benjamin Wallfisch has prepared Harmonium with both Adams and Edo de Waart, who conducted the work's premiere in 1981.

Freck adds, "I believe this will be one of those concerts that people will be talking about for years to come. From beginning to end, this program will be an immersive experience for the audience, putting them directly in touch with one of music's modern masters, as well as the composers who helped form his style."

Specially designed to bring audience members deeper into the music, the Composer Portraits concerts include several special opportunities to learn more about the Symphony's featured composers and their influence.

"Composer Portraits: John Adams" includes the premier performance of University of North Carolina School of the Arts student Leo Hurley's String Quartet No. 1, the winning entry in the Symphony's John Adams String Quartet Competition. The piece will be presented within a special chamber music performance by Symphony musicians, hosted by North Carolina State University professor Dr. J. Mark Scearce, in Meymandi Concert Hall on Friday, March 25, at 6:45 p.m. The performance is free to ticketholders of the Friday evening concert.

Audience members can also meet the musicians involved in the performances during a pre-concert talk hosted by Catherine Brand of WUNC 91.5 FM in the lobby of Meymandi Concert Hall on Saturday, March 26, at 6:30 p.m.

The limited edition "Composer Portraits" book is also available online and on concert evenings for $10. It features rare insights into this groundbreaking series of concerts, including an interview with John Adams and conversation between Scott Freck and Grant Llewellyn about the decisions that went into programming Adams's music alongside that of other composers.

Visit the Symphony's "Explore the Score" page (www.ncsymphony.org/explorethescore) for complete information on the "Composer Portraits" series.

Regular tickets to the Duke Medicine Classical Series Raleigh performances of "Composer Portraits: John Adams" on Friday and Saturday, March 25-26, range from $30 to $60, with $30 tickets for seniors and $10 tickets for students. Meymandi Concert Hall is located in the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts, 2 E. South St., in Raleigh.

For tickets, program notes, podcasts, the blog and more, visit the North Carolina Symphony Web site at www.ncsymphony.org. Call North Carolina Symphony Audience Services at 919.733.2750 or toll free 877.627.6724. The State of North Carolina has issued your Symphony an $8 million challenge; learn more at www.ncsymphony.org/challenge.

 

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