December 2, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Portland, Ore. … A child’s imagination transforms everyday objects into musical instruments in Tales & Scales’ world premiere of “Just Beyond the Junkyard” for an Oregon Symphony Kids Concert led by Resident Conductor Gregory Vajda on Sunday, Jan. 8 at 1 and 3 p.m. at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Media support is provided by Metro Parent and Radio Disney.
This latest offering from the acclaimed “music-telling” children’s ensemble Tales & Scales features a young girl,Renny Hall, with a big imagination. She lives near an inner-city junkyard where her vivid fantasies transform the junkyard and its contents into a magical realm. When both the junkyard and her home are threatened, Renny puts her resourcefulness and creativity to work to save them. During the course of the hour-long program, Tales & Scales’ original musical score is interspersed with “junkyard jamming,” the use of common household items as musical instruments. This innovative combination creates toe-tapping music that will appeal to audiences of all ages.
In “Just Beyond the Junkyard,” composer Doug Lofstrom and writer Margaret Ford-Taylor weave words and music together into this modern story. Combining theater, music and movement, The Tales & Scales troupe (Zara Lawler, flutes; Patrick Leyden, clarinets; Bonnie Whiting Smith, percussion and C. Neil Parsons, bass trombone) brings the story to life, as they become characters, objects and dancers in the unique style of performance they call “musictelling.”
Tickets range from $7 to $36 and may be purchased in advance at the Oregon Symphony Customer Service Office (923 S.W. Washington), Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or charged by phone at (503) 228-1353 or (800) 228-7343. Tickets also may be purchased at all Ticketmaster outlets (503-790-ARTS) or through Ticketmaster Online, via the Symphony’s Web site at www.orsymphony.org. Service fees may apply.
Newly appointed Resident Conductor Gregory Vajda, who made his highly acclaimed Oregon Symphony debut in 2003, is considered one of the most brilliant conductors emerging on the international scene. Hailed as a “young titan,” Vajda just completed a three-year term as the assistant conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.
As Resident Conductor, Vajda’s responsibilities include conducting select Oregon Symphony Classical and Pops concerts in addition to serving as the primary conductor for the Youth and Kids Concerts. He also will serve as the orchestra’s chief “cover” conductor, which requires him to be available and prepared to conduct any concert or rehearsal on a moment’s notice. His primary responsibility is to partner with Music Director Carlos Kalmar in maintaining the day-to-day artistic integrity of the orchestra.
Prior to his appointment with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Vajda served as founder and artistic advisor of the Valley of the Arts Summer Festival in Hungary, permanent guest conductor of the Hungarian State Opera (1998-03), principal conductor of the Ernö Dohnányi Symphony Orchestra in Budapest, and was a member of the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra.
In the summer of 2005, Mr. Vajda appeared at the Round Top Festival in Texas, and returned to both the Naumburg Orchestral Concert Series in New York’s Central Park and the Woodstock Mozart Festival in Illinois. In the 2005-06 season, he looks forward to a return engagement with the Winnipeg Symphony orchestras, the Ensemble Intercontemporain and his debut with the Louisiana Philharmonic. These performances are in addition to his regular performances with the Oregon Symphony.
Season highlights for 2004-2005 include Vajda’s third appearance with the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris and Brussels, and debut appearances with the Omaha and Louisville Symphony orchestras. He also led the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra in a subscription concert series, and was commissioned to compose and conduct a piece for the Making New Waves Festival in Budapest.
In past seasons, Mr. Vajda appeared with St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic, the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa and Ensemble Intercontemporain. He also has conducted at the festivals of Avignon and Strassbourg, and at the Woodstock Mozart Festival and Mostly Mozart Festival in Lincoln Center.
In addition to conducting, Mr. Vajda is also a clarinetist and composer. Recently, he conducted his own composition for the silent film “The Crowd” at the Auditorium of the Louvre, with American pianist Jay Gottlieb. He has also recorded his own orchestral piece entitled “Duevoe” with the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. He was honored with the Zoltán Kodály State Scholarship for composers for the year 2000, and the Annie Fischer State Scholarship for music performers in the year 1999.
Vajda lives in Portland.
Tales & Scales, based in Evansville, Indiana, was founded in 1986 to fulfill a need for quality arts programming for children and family audiences. In a mission to ignite imaginations through the performing arts, and with minimum use of sets or costumes, the group of instrumental musicians combines story, music and movement to create their “Musictales.”
Each year since its inception, working in collaboration
with renowned composers, writers, and theater directors,
Tales & Scales creates a new work to add to its
body of music-telling productions. The troupe
of four musicians travels the country, giving over
250 performances each year in performing arts centers,
with symphony orchestras and in schools. Tales & Scales
has brought its musictelling to the stages of the Boston
Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Detroit Symphony,
the Baltimore Symphony and the Atlanta Symphony among
others, to the New Victory Theater in New York City,
the Grant Park Music Festival, the John F. Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts, the Candlelight Concert
Series, the Annenberg Center in Philadelphia, and the
Smithsonian Institution’s Discovery Theatre,
as well as to hundreds of schools across the United
States. Tales & Scales has been featured
on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” and “Talk
of the Nation,” as well as in several national
publications.
In addition to its performances, Tales & Scales
works with the nation’s educators and students
from the primary grades to the university level, as
well as with music students and orchestra musicians,
through Tales & Scales workshops
and residencies designed to partner the arts with education
and thus bring imagination and creativity through the
arts into every child’s life.
