Contact:
Carl Herko
Vice President, Media & Public Relations
503-416-6347
cherko@orsymphony.org

December 15, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THE OREGON SYMPHONY IN JANUARY:
FIVE HOT CONCERTS FOR THE COLDEST MONTH OF THE YEAR

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(PORTLAND, Ore.) – The Oregon Symphony aims to take the chill out of Portland’s atmosphere in January with a series of performances designed to heat up the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall stage. Starting with an appearance by the red-hot bluegrass band Cherryholmes – two-time nominees for 2009 Grammy awards – the month’s concerts also include an in-depth exploration of Franz Schubert’s most popular symphony, a double-concerto performance by the reigning master of the double bass and a celebration of a century’s worth of Broadway show-stoppers. January concludes with the solo debut of the orchestra’s dynamic young concertmaster. Complete details on all of the Oregon Symphony’s January concerts follow:

 

THURSDAY, JAN. 8:
THE GRAMMY-NOMINATED BLUEGRASS SENSATION CHERRYHOLMES

• When and Where: One performance only, at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 8; Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.

• The Performers: The Oregon Symphony, with Resident Conductor
  Gregory Vajda on the podium, joined by the all-in-the-family bluegrass phenoms Cherryholmes.

• The Program: A wide variety of Cherryholmes hits from the group’s six albums, including their latest, “Don’t Believe,” a recent Grammy nominee for Bluegrass Album of the Year. (NOTE: The Oregon Symphony will perform along with Cherryholmes throughout the program.)

• Tickets: $15 to $65; at the Oregon Symphony Ticket Office, 923 SW Washington St., in downtown Portland. Ticket office hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Tickets may also be purchased by phone at (503) 228-1353 or (800) 228-7343 during the same hours, or online at any time from the orchestra’s web site, orsymphony.org. Tickets are also available through ticketmaster.com or by calling (503) 790-ARTS.

• What’s So Special About These Concerts:
• The 10-year-old family bluegrass band Cherryholmes – father Jere Cherryholmes, mother Sandy Lee, and their four children, daughters Cia Leigh and Molly Kate, and sons Skip and B.J. – came together in 1999 in a moment of inspiration after the family spent the day together at a bluegrass festival near their home in Southern California. Today Cherryholmes is the talk of the bluegrass world, known for its hard-driving instrumental virtuosity and explosive vocal harmonies.
• Cherryholmes scored two recent nominations for 2009 Grammy Awards, to be presented Feb. 8: Their most recent album, “Don’t Believe,” was nominated as Bluegrass Album of the Year, and one of its cuts, “Sumatra,” earned a nomination for Country Instrumental of the Year.
• The concert leads up to Portland’s annual River City Bluegrass Festival, scheduled for the weekend of Jan. 9-11.

 

SUNDAY, JAN. 11:
“INSIDE THE SCORE” EXPLORES SCHUBERT’S “UNFINISHED” SYMPHONY

• When and Where: 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 11; Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

• The Performers: The Oregon Symphony, led by Resident Conductor Gregory Vajda

• Tickets: $15 to $80; at the Oregon Symphony Ticket Office, 923 SW Washington St., in downtown Portland. Ticket office hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Tickets may also be purchased by phone at (503) 228-1353 or (800) 228-7343 during the same hours, or online at any time from the orchestra’s web site, orsymphony.org. Tickets are also available through ticketmaster.com or by calling (503) 790-ARTS.

• The Program:
• Franz Schubert: Symphony No. 7 in B minor, "Unfinished"  

• What’s So Special About This Concert:
• The “Unfinished” Symphony is Viennese composer Franz Schubert’s most popular symphony today, but not so in the composer’s time. Written in 1822, it was forgotten and remained unpublished for 45 years. It was virtually unknown for the 37 years after the composer’s death.
• “Inside the Score” concerts feature short musical programs – about an hour and a half in length, with no intermission – aimed at giving audience members a unique insight into the music. Vajda will first discuss the work, setting it in context and illustrating his points with other musical examples, including, this time, a final movement completed by another composer. The Oregon Symphony will then perform Schubert’s symphony in its entirety.
• “Inside the Score” concerts are among the most popular events on the Oregon Symphony’s season-long calendar and an ideal way to introduce both children and new concertgoers to the world of orchestral music.
• The presenting sponsor is the Portland Tribune.

 

SATURDAY-MONDAY, JAN. 17-19:
EDGAR MEYER, THE BEST BASSIST IN THE BUSINESS

• When and Where: Three performances, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 17 and 18, and 8 p.m. Monday, Jan. 19; Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. (NOTE: This concert will also be performed at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 20, at Willamette University’s Smith Hall in Salem with Resident Conductor Gregory Vajda on the podium.)

• The Performers: The Oregon Symphony, led by Music Director Carlos Kalmar, with guest soloist Edgar Meyer, double bass. (Resident Conductor Gregory Vajda leads the Jan. 20 Salem performance only.)

• The Program:
• Charles Ives: Central Park in the Dark
• Giovanni Bottesini: Double Bass Concerto No. 2 in B minor
• Edgar Meyer: Double Bass Concerto No. 1 in D
• Antonin Dvořák: Symphony No. 6

• Tickets: FOR THE PORTLAND PERFORMANCES: $15 to $98; at the Oregon Symphony Ticket Office, 923 SW Washington St., in downtown Portland. Ticket office hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Tickets may also be purchased by phone at (503) 228-1353 or (800) 228-7343 during the same hours, or online at any time from the orchestra’s web site, orsymphony.org. Tickets are also available through ticketmaster.com or by calling (503) 790-ARTS.

FOR THE SALEM PERFORMANCE: $25 to $43, available from TicketsWest.

• What’s So Special About This These Concerts:
• Double-bass soloist Edgar Meyer, winner of a 2002 MacArthur “genius” grant, is widely regarded as the premier bassist performing today. The New Yorker has called him “the most remarkable virtuoso in the history of his instrument.”
• At these concerts Meyer performs two double-bass concertos: Giovanni Bottesini’s Concerto No. 2 and his own Concerto No. 1 – neither of which has ever been performed before by the Oregon Symphony.
• Two other seldom-heard works on the program – American composer Charles Ives’ brief and evocative “Central Park in the Dark” and Antonin Dvořák’s boldly muscular Symphony No. 6 – each receive their first Oregon Symphony performances in nearly 14 years.  

 

SATURDAY-SUNDAY, JAN. 24-25:
JEFF TYZIK’S POPS SERIES VISITS THE GREAT WHITE WAY

• When and Where: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 24, and 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 25; Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. (NOTE: This concert will also be performed at 8 p.m. Monday, Jan. 26, at Willamette University’s Smith Hall in Salem.)

• The Performers: The Oregon Symphony, with newly named Principal Pops Conductor Jeff Tyzik on the podium, joined by guest vocalists Doug LaBrecque and Sarah Uriarte Berry.

• The Program:
• An anthology of Broadway hits spanning the breadth of the 20th century, by composers ranging from George M. Cohan, Sigmund Romberg and Victor Herbert to Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

• Tickets: FOR THE PORTLAND PERFORMANCES: $15 to $92; at the Oregon Symphony Ticket Office, 923 SW Washington St., in downtown Portland. Ticket office hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Tickets may also be purchased by phone at (503) 228-1353 or (800) 228-7343 during the same hours, or online at any time from the orchestra’s web site, orsymphony.org. Tickets are also available through ticketmaster.com or by calling (503) 790-ARTS.

FOR THE SALEM PERFORMANCE: $26 to $54, available from TicketsWest.

• What’s So Special About These Concerts:
• Principal Pops Conductor Jeff Tyzik returns for the third of the season’s four concerts in the orchestra’s shorter and more focused Pops season.
• “It’s not just a concert of Broadway music,” says Tyzik, who describes the program as a chronological tour of a century’s worth of Broadway show-stoppers celebrating what “one of America’s great art forms.”
• Singers Doug LaBrecque and Sarah Uriarte Berry bring with them a long list of Broadway credits, including starring roles in Broadway productions of Phantom of the Opera and Showboat (LaBrecque) as well as Light in the Piazza and Les Miserables (Berry). Tyzik calls LaBrecque “one of the greatest Broadway baritones of our day.”

 

SATURDAY-MONDAY, JAN. 31-FEB. 2:
CONCERTMASTER JUN IWASAKI MAKES HIS SOLO VIOLIN DEBUT

• When and Where: Three performances, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, and 8 p.m. Monday, Feb. 2; Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.

• The Performers: The Oregon Symphony, conducted by Music Director Carlos Kalmar, with Concertmaster Jun Iwasaki as violin soloist.

• The Program:
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: March in C major
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 40 in G minor
• Erich Wolfgang Korngold: Violin Concerto in D major
• Richard Strauss: “Dance of the Seven Veils” from Salome

• Tickets: $15 to $98; at the Oregon Symphony Ticket Office, 923 SW Washington St., in downtown Portland. Ticket office hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Tickets may also be purchased by phone at (503) 228-1353 or (800) 228-7343 during the same hours, or online at any time from the orchestra’s web site, orsymphony.org. Tickets are also available through ticketmaster.com or by calling (503) 790-ARTS.

• What’s So Special About This These Concerts:
• These concerts mark the solo concerto debut of violinist Jun Iwasaki, who was appointed concertmaster of the Oregon Symphony at the start of the 2007-08 season.  
• The Korngold Violin Concerto that Iwasaki will perform has been favorite of both violinists and audiences since its premiere, although the New York Sun once famously dismissed it as “more corn than gold.” It is based on themes from several of Korngold’s Hollywood film scores. The Oregon Symphony has performed it only one other time in its history.
• The opening work on the program, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s five-minute-long March in C major, gets its Oregon Symphony premiere at these concerts more than 225 years after it was composed.
• Presenting sponsor is the OHSU Brain Institute.

 

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CONTACT:
Carl Herko
Vice President, Media & Public Relations
(503) 416-6347
cherko@orsymphony.org