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03.13.06

Contact: Nancy Condon, 404-727-1687, ncondon@emory.edu

Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and Conductor Valery Gergiev to Perform at Emory’s Schwartz

On Sunday, April 2, 2006, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra makes Emory’s Schwartz Center the first stop on its American tour. Led by the celebrated Russian conductor Valery Gergiev and joined by solo pianist Vladimir Feltsman, the orchestra will perform Sergei Rachmaninoff’s thundering Piano Concerto No. 3 and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 5. Tickets for the performance, which begins at 8 p.m., are $60, $40 for non-Emory students and patrons over 65, $10 for Emory students.

The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, founded in 1918, is one of the leading orchestras in the Netherlands and worldwide. The orchestra performs more than 100 concerts a year, attracting 150,000 audience members. Most of these concerts take place in their home concert hall de Doelen, but since Gergiev became musical director in 1995, the orchestra has significantly increased its international presence. The orchestra’s performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 5 at the Schwartz is part of Gergiev’s goal to present the entire cycle of Shostakovich’s symphonies this year, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Gergiev explains why he feels it is important to present them all: ''These symphonies provoke so much discussion about political situations, the propaganda machine around Shostakovich, historical figures like Stalin or Hitler or Zhdanov.”

Gergiev also holds the positions of principal guest conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, and runs the Stars of the White Nights festival in St. Petersburg, the Moscow Easter Festival, the Gergiev Festival Rotterdam and the Mikkeli International Festival in Finland. Starting in 2007, he will be principal guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. He is the 2006 winner of the Herbert von Karajan Prize, an annual award for contemporary musicians and the winner of the 2006 Polar Music Prize, a $125,000 prize presented by the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.

Feltsman is internationally recognized as one of the most important pianists of his generation. A compelling artistic personality hailed for the dramatic impact and individuality of his interpretations, he brings his prodigious technique, command of sonority and evocative musical imagination to an extensive repertoire. He is a regular guest soloist with every leading orchestra in the United States and appears on the most prestigious concert series and music festivals all over the world. Feltsman is renowned for his brilliant performances of the notoriously difficult Rachmanioff Piano Concerto no. 3. The Seattle Times described his 2003 performance of the concerto with the Seattle Symphony: “At the end of his electrifying performance, the audience shot out of their seats as if impelled by cattle prods, for a shouting, whistling, stomping ovation that brought Feltsman back again and again to the stage.” Born in Moscow, Feltsman has lived in the U.S. since he left the Soviet Union in 1987. He currently lives in upstate New York.

For more information about the concert, call 404-727-5050 or go to www.arts.emory.edu.

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