AMERICAN SYMPHONY CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 2001-02 BARD-VASSAR CONCERT SERIES CONCLUDES APRIL 26 AND 27 Program features works by Wagner and Beethoven and a world premiere by Hudson Valley conductor and composer Harold Farberman

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.-The final concerts in this year's American Symphony Chamber Orchestra (ASCO) Bard-Vassar series will be held on Friday, April 26, at Olin Hall, Bard College, and on Saturday, April 27, at Skinner Hall, Vassar College. Presented by The Bard Center, both concerts begin at 8:00 p.m. and include preconcert talks at 7:00 p.m. Admission is $15 ($10 for seniors and students).

Conducted by American Symphony Orchestra music director Leon Botstein, the concerts will feature the world premiere of Harold Farberman's Concerto for Cathy, with oboist Robert Ingliss, the orchestra's principal oboist. The piece, completed in 2001, was written for oboist Cathy Gerardi, a colleague of Farberman, who describes the three-movement work as a "musical portrait of certain aspects of Cathy's daily life. The final movement is a slow, cadenza-like meditation that utilizes the full range of the instrument." Also on the program are Wagner's Siegfried Idyll, considered to be one of his greatest instrumental works, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68 ("Pastorale"), which was written between 1806 and 1808, just after Beethoven admitted his growing deafness to his friends.

"We're excited about bringing together two classic works with a premiere by the distinguished American composer Harold Farberman, who is a resident of the Hudson Valley and director of the Conductors Institute at Bard," said music director Leon Botstein.

The concerts at Bard are made possible, in part, through the generosity of the Homeland Foundation and the Leon Levy Foundation at Bard College. For further information and reservations, call The Bard Center at 845-758-7425.

About the Artists:
The American Symphony Chamber Orchestra is composed of many of the best of the American Symphony Orchestra's fine musicians. The ASO was formed in 1962 by Leopold Stokowski and embarked on its mission to "perform concerts of great music within the means of everyone." Today, under music director Leon Botstein (who assumed directorship in 1992), that mission has broadened to revitalize the concertgoing experience as a vibrant force in contemporary culture. The Bard-Vassar Concerts include several performances a year of superlative chamber music featuring works of contemporary composers together with classics of the chamber repertoire.

Leon Botstein, music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra (ASO), conducts the orchestra's subscription season at Avery Fisher Hall as part of Lincoln Center Presents Great Performers, as well as seasons in New York and the Hudson Valley with the American Symphony Chamber Orchestra, and Classics Declassified, an educational series for adult listeners at Miller Theater. In 1994 he took the ASO to Japan and Korea on a tour sponsored by Toshiba and in 1998 he led the ASO on a tour to Brazil to inaugurate a new concert hall in São Paulo. In January of 2000 at Avery Fisher Hall, he recorded a live performance for Telarc of Richard Strauss's opera Die Liebe der Danae with soprano Lauren Flanigan and the ASO. His other recordings with the ASO include Brahms's First Serenade (Vanguard) and Franz Schubert: Orchestrated, and orchestrations of Schubert's works by Joachim, Mottl, and Webern (Koch). He also conducts the ASO in the Harp Concertino of Dohnányi for a recording forthcoming from Arabesque. Botstein is the founder and coartistic director of the Bard Music Festival. Each year this internationally acclaimed festival explores the musical world of a single composer, reviving forgotten masterpieces and rediscovering works in context. The 2002 festival will explore the world of Mahler. Every autumn the Bard Music Festival brings highlights from its summer programs to Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. Active as a guest conductor, Botstein has led such orchestras as the London Philharmonic, London Philharmonia, NDR-Hannover, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Bochum Symphony, Israel Sinfonietta, Düsseldorf Symphony, Jerusalem Symphony, Bern Symphony, and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. In a prestigious series of recordings, Botstein has led the London Philharmonic most recently in Max Reger's Four Böcklin Tone Poems and A Romantic Suite, Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra, and music of Karol Szymanowski. Other recordings with Telarc include symphonies of Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Dohnányi's D Minor Symphony, and Bruckner's Fifth Symphony (Schalk edition). He also has recorded a live performance of Max Bruch's oratorio Odysseus with NDR-Hannover (Koch); Mendelssohn's Paulus (Arabesque); the music of Joseph Joachim with violinist Elmar Oliviera (Carlton Classics); and a series of contemporary works by Richard Wilson, Robert Starer, Richard Wenick, and Meyer Kupferman (CRI). He studied violin with Roman Totenberg and conducting with James Yannatos, Richard Wernick, and Harold Farberman. Since 1975 he has been the president of Bard College, where he is also Leon Levy Professor in the Arts and Humanities. He is a prominent writer on music and history, and in 1996 received Harvard's prestigious Centennial Medal for his scholarly work. Botstein has published extensively on music and culture for numerous collections and journals. He is the editor of The Musical Quarterly and a contributor to the second edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. His edited volume, The Compleat Brahms, was published by Norton in 1999. He is currently working on a book on the history of listening.

Harold Farberman is a noted conductor, composer, and musician. His earliest composition, Evolution, has been recorded four times, once by Leopold Stokowski. Aaron Copland invited Farberman to study composition with him at Tanglewood after hearing Evolution. He was music director of the Colorado Springs and Oakland Symphony Orchestras, and principal guest conductor of the Denver Symphony Orchestra and the Bournemouth (Great Britain) Sinfonietta. He has been a frequent guest conductor and recording artist with such orchestras as the London Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, and Stockholm Philharmonic. A prolific composer of music for orchestra, ballet, film, chamber ensemble, and opera, he was awarded the Ives Medal for his dedication to the music of Charles Ives. In November 2000, his cello concerto was premiered by the American Symphony Orchestra at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. Farberman founded the Conductors Guild and is the author of The Art of Conducting Technique. He is also the founder and director of the Conductors Institute at Bard College.

Principal oboist of the American Symphony Orchestra Robert Ingliss has also served as principal oboist with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the Northeast Pennsylvania Philharmonic, Philharmonia Virtuosi, and the Santa Fe Opera. He has appeared with almost every important large ensemble in New York City and in 1998 he was the soloist in the Haydn Sinfonia Concertante with the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble during their tour of Southeast Asia as the first American orchestra to play in Vietnam since the war. He is a member of An die Musik, and served as oboist of the Aspen Wind Quintet for six years. Also known as a new-music oboist, Ingliss is a member of Ensemble Sospeso and has appeared with Da Capo Chamber Players, League-ISCM Chamber Players, New Music Consort, Parnassus, and Speculum Musicae, among others. He can be heard on over two dozen record labels performing a wide range of repertoire. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Ingliss studied with Robert Bloom and Arthur Krilov.

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(4.11.02)

This event was last updated on 04-12-2002

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