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Bravo I: Opening Night
7:30 PM, Saturday, September 17, 2011
Thalia Mara Hall
Maurice Ravel’s La Valse (The Waltz) raises the curtain on the season, followed by Marta Szlubowska’s performance of Max Bruch’s lyrical Violin Concerto No. 1 and Shostakovich’s riveting Symphony No. 5.
A free pre-concert lecture by Timothy Coker is available at the Mississippi Museum of Art (cash bar) at 6:45 PM.
The entire audience is invited to a complimentary reception with food and wine on the Fountain Court immediately following the concert. Music will be provided by David Keary's HOT CLUB SWING!
SPECIAL NOTE: Due to Maestro Crafton Beck’s recent shoulder surgery, guest conductor Leif Bjaland has been engaged to lead MSO in this exciting evening of music. See his bio below under FEATURED MUSICIANS, along with Concertmaster Marta Szlubowska's bio, which follows.
Sponsors
This evening's concert is generously sponsored by:
Ms. Szlubowska’s appearance as soloist is generously sponsored by:
John and Melody Maxey
Complimentary wine at intermission provided by:
E. & J. Gallo Winery
Accommodations provided by:
Symphony Lovers Parking provided by:
Program
Leif Bjaland, Guest Conductor
Maurice Ravel: La Valse
Max Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1, in G minor, Op. 26
- Allegro Moderato
- Adagio
- Finale: Allegro energico
Marta Szlubowska, violin
Intermission
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 in D minor, op. 47
- Moderato
- Allegretto
- Largo
- Allegro non troppo
LEIF BJALAND
Artistic Director
Sarasota Orchestra, FL
Music Director
Waterbury Symphony Orchestra, CT
Leif Bjaland is one of the most dynamic and exciting American conductors now before the public. Currently serving as the Artistic Director/Conductor of the Sarasota Orchestra, the orchestra has seen unprecedented growth in his tenure. In addition, Mr. Bjaland is also Music Director of the Waterbury Symphony in Connecticut where he has received enormous enthusiasm and critical praise for his performances and imaginative programming.
A popular and active guest conductor, Mr. Bjaland made his debut at the 2003 Ravinia Festival conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a program entitled "Bernstein on Broadway" also involving soloists, chorus and dancers. He has also appeared with the San Francisco Symphony, National Symphony, Florida Philharmonic, Louisiana Philharmonic and the symphony orchestras of Fort Worth, Nashville, Detroit, Rochester, Utah, Madison, Akron, Fort Wayne, Fresno, Des Moines, Mobile, San Jose, Rhode Island, Virginia, Harrisburg, Colorado, Long Beach, Chicago's Symphony II, Grand Rapids, Flint, Kalamazoo, and New World to name but a few. Mr. Bjaland led the Cincinnati Symphony at an opening concert of a Riverbend summer season, and conducted at Chicago's Grant Park Music Festival in consecutive summers of 1995 and 1996. In 2001, he conducted the opening week of the Interlochen Arts Festival, and in the summer of 2002 guest conducted the Young Artists Orchestra at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute culminating in a performance in Ozawa Hall.
Mr. Bjaland is also an active opera conductor and assisted in the production of David Carlson's The Midnight Angel at Glimmerglass Opera. He conducted the Florida Grand Opera in three productions in four years including a highly acclaimed Don Giovanni a triple bill of one-act operas by Manuel de Falla - El Amor Brujo, Master Peter's Puppet Show and La Vida Breve; and Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. Bjaland received great attention and critical acclaim when he gave the world premiere concert performance of George Chadwick's opera The Padrone. In 2000-01 Leif Bjaland conducted a new commission by the Florida West Coast Symphony of David Carlson's Quantum symphony.
Mr. Bjaland has conducted in Europe and Asia. He conducted the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra to great acclaim with six performances of three programs. He has conducted the Malmo Symphony in Sweden and he also took that country's Gavleborgs Symphony Orchestra on a four-city tour. He conducted the Orchestra of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation in Oslo in a concert televised throughout Scandinavia and he conducted Coppelia at the Ballet de L'Opera Royal de Wallonie in Liege, Belgium. He has conducted the Hong Kong Philharmonic as well as the Philippine Philharmonic in Manila. The latter appearance led to an immediate invitation to return to that city to conduct a new production of Madama Butterfly for the Opera Company of the Philippines.
In 1989, Mr. Bjaland was named resident conductor and artistic coordinator of the New World Symphony and served in that capacity for four years. Following his debut conducting the orchestra and in his many subsequent appearances, he received the all-out praise of the critics who have called him "a young sculptor in sound" and "one of the key figures in the development of the New World Symphony." Highlights of his residency with New World included his conducting the American premiere of the Frank Martin Symphony 1937 as well as the Florida premieres of the Martinu Symphony No. 5 and the Bruckner Symphony No. 2.
Leif Bjaland was selected by Leonard Bernstein in 1988 to conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at several concerts as part of the American Conductors Program. He led the Chicagoans in Richard Strauss' tone poem Till Eulenspiegel of which Chicago Tribune critic John von Rhein said"Bjaland clearly has the most experience, the best technique and the best musical command." In the summer of 1990, Bjaland was invited by Leonard Bernstein and Michael Tilson Thomas to participate in the premiere season of the Pacific Music Festival in Japan where he conducted the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra and the Sapporo Symphony in the Festival's closing performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9.
From 1986-1990, Mr. Bjaland was Assistant Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. During his tenure he conducted the orchestra in many highly praised subscription concerts and also served as music director of the award-winning San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra which he took on an Asian tour in July 1989; and to Italy, France and Spain in the summer of 1992. Prior to his appointment at the San Francisco Symphony, Mr. Bjaland was a professor of music at Yale University and served as music director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra, which he led on a very successful tour of Europe in 1985.
A native of Michigan, Leif Bjaland received his Master's degree in music from the University of Michigan where he was a student of Gustav Meier and Elizabeth A.H. Green. He is the recipient of an honorary doctor of music degree, conferred by Susquehanna University.
MARTA SZLUBOWSKA, CONCERTMASTER
Violinist Marta Szlubowska, a native of Warsaw, Poland, gave her first public performance at the age of seven at the Warsaw Philharmonic Recital Hall and soloed with the Szymanowski Liceum Orchestra in Poland and on tour of Great Britain at the age of thirteen. In 1983, Ms. Szlubowska came to the United States to study at the Peabody Conservatory of Music as a winner of the Joseph Maddy Scholarship (six-year full scholarship) where she received a Bachelor of Music Degree in performance and an Artist's Diploma. She continued with graduate studies at the University of Massachusetts, earning a Master's of Music Degree in performance as a student and teaching assistant of Charles Treger (the only American to ever win the Wieniawski International Violin Competition in Poland).
Ms. Szlubowska has been awarded many prizes including second prize at the Bryan International String Competition in North Carolina and Honorable Mentions at international violin competitions in Poland, Belgium and Finland.
In the U.S., Ms. Szlubowska has appeared as a soloist with the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, Tacoma Symphony, Olympia Symphony, Bellevue Philharmonic and many others. Ms. Szlubowska has collaborated with such distinguished artists as Julius Baker (New York Philharmonic), Judith Glyde (Manhattan String Quartet), Alex Klein (Chicago Symphony), Gerhardt Zimmerman (North Carolina Symphony), Kevin Kenner (Winner, Chopin International Piano Competition), Harvey Felder (Tacoma Symphony) and others. She has performed in violin master classes of Ruggiero Ricci, Henryk Szeryng and others. Ms. Szlubowska has given numerous performances at the Tanglewood, Interlochen, and Meadowmount Music Festivals, and has appeared as a recitalist with Community Concerts, Inc. and at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. She has served on the faculty of the Eastern Music Festival, Utah Music Festival, and Marrowstone Music Festival. Ms. Szlubowska has performed under the baton of Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa at Tanglewood, and Alexander Schneider at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Between 1992 and 1999 Ms. Szlubowska held the position of Assistant Professor of Violin at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, where in addition to her teaching duties she performed extensively as a soloist, as a concertmaster of the University Symphony Orchestra and as first violinist of the Regency String Quartet. Between 1999-2004 she held the alternating positions of the Associate Concertmaster and the Concertmaster of the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra in La Crosse, Wisconsin. After being a finalist for the Violin Position in the Minnesota Orchestra, Ms. Szlubowska was invited to perform numerous concerts with MO under the direction of such renowned conductors as Edo de Waart and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski. During the summer of 2001 she began her association with the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder, Colorado, as a member of the festival orchestra. In June 2007, Ms. Szlubowska was a guest artist at the Belvedere Chamber Music Festival in Memphis, TN, where she promoted, through performance and recording, works by several award-winning contemporary composers from US as well as Italy and Hong Kong.
In the spring of 2007, Ms. Szlubowska made her debut performances (Jackson, MS; Hattiesburg, MS; and Fresno, CA) of the newly formed piano trio, Trio Appassionato, with pianist, Lynn Raley, Associate Piano Professor at Millsaps College in Jackson, MS, and cellist, Alexander Russakovsky, an Assistant Professor at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, MS. Since the fall of 2004 Ms. Szlubowska has been an appointed Concertmaster of the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra in Jackson, Mississippi.
For more information, please visit www.martaszlubowska.com.