August 4, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Portland, Ore. … Oregon Public Broadcasting will air an Oregon Symphony Classical concert featuring the Symphony’s premiere of Mahler’s rarely-performed Symphony No. 7 with Music Director Carlos Kalmar leading the orchestra on Friday, Sept. 1, from 9 to 11 p.m. This broadcast is the last of nine OPB broadcasts of classical Oregon Symphony concerts from the 2005-06 season which will air on OPB Radio the first Friday of each month through September 2006.
Mahler’s Seventh Symphony is a monumental work which features over an hour of music in five movements, as well as some unusual instruments, including mandolin and guitar. “This music is very dramatic,” says Kalmar. “It reveals some little-known facets of Mahler’s personality.” Also on the program is the Symphony’s premiere of Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E-flat, “St. Anne,” arranged for orchestra by Arnold Schoenberg. “This arrangement is very lush and brilliant. It calls for a huge orchestra, including six French horns,” says Kalmar. “It’s not often we have so many players onstage at once, and since the Mahler also requires a large orchestra it makes sense to program these two works together.”
In addition to the concerts, OPB and KBPS are collaborating to bring listeners interviews with musicians and conductors during the performance intermission. All broadcasts are repeating on KBPS in a nine-week series which began July 16; this concert will air Sunday, Sept. 10, from 7 to 9 p.m. KBPS programs classical music all day, every day at 89.9 FM in the Portland region and 90.1 in the Columbia Gorge. Jefferson Public Radio, serving southwest Oregon and northern California, also aired the broadcasts in a nine-week series which concluded July 28.
Oregon Public Broadcasting is a statewide network of community-supported learning resources, including OPB Television, an affiliate of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and OPB Radio, presenting local news coverage and the programs of National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Radio International (PRI). For a list of OPB Radio frequencies, log on to www.opb.org.
For more information, please contact Carol Howard at (503) 977-7751 or carol_howard@opb.org, or visit the Symphony’s website at www.orsymphony.org.