McGegan to Conduct the Academy Festival Orchestra
For Immediate Release July 2, 2008
Contact:
Tim Dougherty
805.695.7908
Santa Barbara, CA – Conductor Nicholas McGegan will enliven Santa Barbara's Lobero Theatre with his trademark infectious energy on Saturday, July 19, when he leads the Academy Festival Orchestra in a buoyant program of works both composed and largely inspired by the great Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Featuring Messiaen's Un sourire, Mozart's Symphony No. 36 in C Major, K. 425 ("Linz"), Ibert's Hommage à Mozart, and Schumann's Symphony No. 1 in B-flat Major ("Spring"), the concert will begin at 8 pm. Tickets cost $45.
Renowned for his irrepressible wit and vivacity as an interpreter of a wide range of classical music, Mr. McGegan is music director of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in San Francisco, where he champions Baroque masters such as Handel, Rameau, Bach, and Vivaldi. His repertoire also encompasses Mozart and Haydn, the complete symphonies of Beethoven, and extends to Stravinsky, Britten, Tippett, and Glass. The New York Times has lauded his ability to elicit performances that are "moving and viscerally powerful." Mr. McGegan's itinerary includes appearances on the most illustrious international podiums, including regular engagements with the Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Milwaukee, New York, Philadelphia, and Saint Louis symphony orchestras. He has also conducted the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, London's Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, and orchestras in Austria, Australia, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, and Malaysia. He appears regularly at the Aspen, Ravinia, and New York's Mostly Mozart festivals, and in 2003 conducted the first opera ever staged at Mostly Mozart, Il re pastore.
In 2005 Mr. McGegan celebrated his 20th year as music director of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. The previous year the orchestra was named Musical America's "Ensemble of the Year." Since 1990 Mr. McGegan also has served as artistic director of the International Handel-Festival Göttingen. His Göttingen performances have resulted in more than a dozen notable recordings of Handel's operas, including the Gramophone Award-winning Ariodante with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Mr. McGegan's extensive discography also includes 25 commercial recordings with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, including the recently released premiere recording of Alessandro Scarlatti's Cecilian Vespers, on the Avie label.
Written in 1989 to honor the bicentenary of Mozart's death, Olivier Messiaen's Un sourire (A smile) is a study in quiet, meditative joyfulness. It was Messiaen's belief that Mozart's music "always smiled," hence the work's title. In contrast, Jacques Ibert's Hommage à Mozart, written in 1956 to mark the 200th anniversary of Mozart's birth, is unabashedly festive, a five-minute symphonic rondo, firmly rooted in the French neoclassical tradition that Messiaen rejected. Rounding out the evening's program are Mozart's own richly complex Symphony No. 36 in C Major, K. 425 ("Linz") and Robert Schumann's Symphony No. 1 in B-flat Major ("Spring"), a rumination on renewal and the rites of nature's rejuvenative season.
The Lobero Theatre is located at 33 East Canon Perdido Street in Santa Barbara. The concert is supported in part by Northern Trust.
The Music Academy will present the West Coast premiere of William Bolcom's opera A Wedding, as well as performances by conductor Peter Oundjian and the Takács Quartet as part of the Academy's 61st Summer Festival. The Academy is presenting 188 events over the course of its 2008 Summer School and Festival, which began June 23 and will conclude on August 16. Additional highlights will include a performance by the Canadian Brass, and conducting turns by George Manahan, Anne Manson, and Daniel Hege. Featuring the Academy's exceptionally talented Fellows, together with illustrious guest performers and faculty, the events will be presented at the Academy's scenic Miraflores campus and in venues throughout Santa Barbara.
For tickets and information, call 969-8787. Information is also available online at www.musicacademy.org.
Founded in 1947, the Music Academy of the West is among the nation's preeminent summer schools and festivals for gifted young classical musicians. The Academy provides these promising musicians with the opportunity for advanced study and frequent performance under the guidance of internationally renowned faculty artists, as well as guest conductors and soloists. Admission to the Academy is strictly merit based, and Fellows receive full scholarships (tuition, room, and board). Academy alumni are members of major symphony orchestras, chamber orchestras, ensembles, opera companies, and university and conservatory faculties throughout the world. Many enjoy careers as prominent solo artists. Based in Santa Barbara, the Music Academy of the West presents more than 200 public events annually, including performances by faculty, visiting artists, and Fellows; masterclasses; orchestra and chamber music concerts; and fully staged opera. The Music Academy will broadcast live performances by the world-renowned Metropolitan Opera at Hahn Hall beginning in October. For more information, visit www.musicacademy.org.
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