October 17, 2003
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Portland, Ore. … Grab your passport and join Music Director Carlos Kalmar for a musical journey through America and Europe as he leads the Oregon Symphony in Copland’s “Appalachian Spring,” Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 “Turkish,” featuring violinist Karen Gomyo and Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, “Rhenish” on Nov. 15, 16 and 17 at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, with an additional performance on Nov. 18 at Salem’s Smith Auditorium. Media support provided by The Oregonian.
Kalmar’s approach to concert programming favors an overall thematic structure that threads through each work. He also embraces the idea of widening audience horizons by “traveling” through different musical works. “The idea of traveling the world via music is endless, but to start, we’ll begin & #8216;at home’ in the United States, then journey to Austria (where I come from), then float down the Rhine,” he explained. Kalmar will further discuss the thematic content of the concert with Shaun Yu of KBPS All-Classical 89.9 in the pre-concert talk before the concert on Saturday night, and will be available in the lobby after each concert to meet audience members personally.
Gomyo, who made her Symphony debut last fall, has a full schedule of appearances planned for the 2003-04 concert season, with such internationally known orchestras as the Toronto Symphony, the Vancouver Symphony under Kazuyoshi Akiyama, the Seattle Symphony with Andrea Delfs and the Norkopping Symphony (Sweden) with Music Director Liu Jia, among others. In addition, she has recently performed with the Houston Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra with Mario Venzago, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra with Junichi Hirokami, and the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra with Maestro Akiyama.
The concert opens with the quintessentially American “Appalachian Spring,” written in 1942 by Aaron Copland as a ballet for Martha Graham, and which has become a favorite among audiences. Gomyo then takes the stage to perform Mozart’s luminescent Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, whose final movement music is inspired by Hungarian melodies and rhythms, but was heard by Austrian audiences of the time as “Turkish,” a handy term used to suggest any music from east of Vienna.
Kalmar and the Symphony open the second half of the concert with Schumann’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 97, the most evocative and programmatic of his works of that genre. Schumann wrote the Symphony in a just a month, shortly after his move to the Rhenish city of Dusseldorf in September 1850 to take up the position as that city’s music director. Scholar Michael Stern suggests, “The & #8216;Rhenish’ Symphony reflects Schumann’s optimism in the face of new challenges and a fresh start among people more outgoing than any he had known and whose ebullience…delighted him.”
Oregon Symphony Classical concerts regularly include additional opportunities for listeners to learn more about the music and the orchestra. These activities include:
Concert Conversations: Music Director Carlos Kalmar and Shaun Yu of KBPS All-Classical 89.9 will lead a discussion one hour before the concert of the works to be performed.
Saturday: Music Director Carlos Kalmar will speak briefly from the podium in “Saturday Interactive.” Media support for “Saturday Interactive” is provided by KINKfm102.
Performances are scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 15 and 16 at 7:30 p.m. and Monday, Nov. 17 at 8 p.m. at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, with an additional performance on Tuesday, Nov. 18 at Salem’s Smith Auditorium. Tickets range in price from $17 to $76 and may be purchased at the Oregon Symphony Ticket Office (923 S.W. Washington), Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or charged by phone at 503-228-1353 or (800) 228-7343. Tickets also may be purchased at all Ticketmaster outlets (503-790-ARTS) or through Ticketmaster Online, via the Symphony’s Web site at www.orsymphony.org. Service fees may apply.
Canadian violinist Karen Gomyo won the 1997 Young Concert Artists International Auditions just one week after her 15th birthday, and was awarded the Norwalk Symphony Soloist Prize by Music Director Jesse Levine. The following year, she became the youngest artist ever to be presented in the Young Concert Artists Series in New York, in a critically-acclaimed debut as recipient of the Summis Auspiciis Prize. The Young Concert Artists Series also presented her Washington, DC recital debut at the Kennedy Center and her New York concerto debut with the New York Chamber Symphony at Alice Tully Hall, playing the Barber Violin Concerto.
In the 2003-04 concert season, she appears with the Toronto Symphony, the Vancouver Symphony under Kazuyoshi Akiyama, the Columbus (Ohio) Symphony under Keith Lockhart, the Calgary Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony with Andrea Delfs, the Oregon Symphony and Music Director Carlos Kalmar, and the Norkopping Symphony (Sweden) with Music Director Liu Jia to name a few.
Some of her recent performances included concerts with the Houston Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra with Mario Venzago, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra with Junichi Hirokami, and the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra with Maestro Akiyama.
Ms. Gomyo has appeared as soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra conducted by Eiji Oue and Claus Peter Flor, the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christopher Hogwood, the Indianapolis Symphony, the San Antonio Symphony, the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra and the Tokyo and Hiroshima Symphony Orchestras. Under the baton of Joseph Swensen, she has performed with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra of Sweden, including a concert in Vienna and a recent tour of Sweden and Hungary. Performances as soloist with U.S. orchestras this season include Tchaikovsky with the Pacific Symphony Orchestra; Sibelius with Symphony 21 at New York's Merkin Concert Hall; Brahms with South Carolina’s Long Bay Symphony; Beethoven with the Mankato (MN) Symphony; and Mozart with the Modesto Symphony.
She recently completed her first recording in the BIS label of works by Bo Linde with the Gavle Sinfonietta.
Through Young Concert Artists, Ms. Gomyo gave a five-city
recital tour of Japan, including a concert at Suntory
Hall in Tokyo, and she has performed at The Louvre
in Paris, on the Ravinia Rising Stars Series, on the
Seattle Symphony Recital Series and on the La Jolla
Chamber Music Society’s Prodigy Series. She has
appeared at the Aspen Music Festivals in Japan and
in Aspen, where she performed with cellist Lynn Harrell,
at the Usedom Music Festival in Germany, at Bargemusic
and the Bard Festival in New York, at the Mostly Mozart
Festival at Avery Fisher Hall in a pre-concert recital,
and for the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations.
Ms. Gomyo has been heard in New York on WQXR and
WNYC Radio, and throughout the U.S. on National Public
Radio’s “Performance Today.” Last
season, she was featured with YCA alumnus cellist
Carter Brey on A & E Television’s “Breakfast
with the Arts,” in segment celebrating the
40th anniversary of Young Concert Artists.
Born in Tokyo in 1982, Ms. Gomyo moved to Montreal in 1984. She began to play in public soon after her first violin lessons at the age of five. After playing for the noted teacher Dorothy DeLay in a master class in Chicago at the age of ten, Miss DeLay invited her to study on full scholarship at The Juilliard School. Ms. Gomyo continued her studies at Indiana University, working with (YCA alumnus) Mauricio Fuks, and is now part of the studio of Donald Weilerstein at the New England Conservatory of Music.
Karen Gomyo is a recipient of support from the Jack Romann Special Artists Fund of YCA. She has been awarded grants from the Heckscher Foundation, the Edward John Noble Foundation, the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation, the Clarisse B. Kampel Foundation, the Brady Dougan Foundation, the Cho Chang Tsung Foundation, the Salon de Virtuosi, and continuing support from the Bagby Foundation for the Musical Arts. Ms. Gomyo plays the rare “Ex Foulis” Stradivarius of 1703 that is on permanent loan to her from a private sponsor.
