Lukas Foss Tribute with JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Phil at Carnegie Hall October 3.

Grammy Award-Winning Conductor JoAnn Falletta to Lead The Buffalo Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall October 3, 2022
Tribute to Lukas Foss In Honor of His 100^th Birthday

On Monday, October 3, 2022 the multiple Grammy award-winning conductor, JoAnn Falletta, will conduct the Buffalo Philharmonic in their return to Carnegie Hall for a tribute to Lukas Foss, in honor of his 100th birthday (August 15, 1922 – Feb 1, 2009). Presented by Trinity Wall Street and Opus 3 Artists, the 7pm concert is a gift to New York City with free admission.

The program will feature five Foss works including his Renaissance Concerto for Flute and Orchestra (1985), commissioned by the BPO for Buffalo native Carol Wincenc, performed by Amy Porter on this concert, Three American Pieces (1944), written for Itzhak Perlman, performed by BPO concertmaster Nikki Chooi on this concert, Symphony No. 1 (1944), written in the American style, inspired by the works of Foss’ friend Aaron Copland, Ode for Orchestra (1944, revised 1958), and Psalms 1956 (1955–1956). Foss loved writing for Chorus and excelled at it. This work will feature the Trinity Choir, hailed as “a choir from heaven” by The London Times in this work.

The concert will be previewed by the BPO at Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo on October 1 at 7:30pm, with Bernstein’s On The Town substituted for Psalms 1956 for this concert, as a nod to the lifelong friendship between Foss and Bernstein who called Foss an “authentic genius,” and met as classmates at Curtis. The goals of this centennial concert are to represent a cross section of Foss’ orchestral works and re-kindle interest in this important American composer, presented by the orchestra that he loved. The hope is that this concert and all orchestral Naxos recording to follow, will inspire an ever-increasing interest in Lukas Foss’ body of work and vibrant musicianship.

Foss was Music Director of BPO from 1963 – 1970 and put the orchestra at the epicenter of new music during his acclaimed tenure. JoAnn Falletta served as Foss’ Associate Conductor at the Milwaukee Symphony from 1985-1988, while still a student at Julliard. They became and remained good friends until his death. One of JoAnn’s first experiences with the Milwaukee Symphony was to accompany the MSO and Maestro Foss on an important European tour. During that tour, Foss was under great pressure to write a flute concerto based on Renaissance themes for Carol Wincenc. Knowing that JoAnn played the lute, he asked her for advice about Renaissance songs and melodies which inspired Foss, and the stunning result was his glowing Renaissance Concerto.
In 1945 Foss became the youngest composer to win a Guggenheim Fellowship and in 2000 he was awarded a Gold Medal by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Foss’s early works are neoclassical-tonal and well-organized in harmony and counterpoint. His later chamber pieces are avant-garde, ordering musical events by means of chance operations and leaving many decisions about the performance to the performers. Recognized as a champion of 20th Century contemporary performance, Foss founded the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble at UCLA in 1953 and the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts in 1963 at the State University of New York at Buffalo. In addition to guest conducting many of the world’s major orchestras, Foss served as Music Director of the Ojai Music Festival for six years between 1961-87, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic from 1971-1987. He was appointed professor of music at UCLA in 1953, replacing Arnold Schoenberg, and professor of music, theory and composition at Boston University beginning in 1991.
Multiple Grammy-winning conductor JoAnn Falletta serves as Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, and Music Director Laureate of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Brevard Music Center and Artistic Adviser to the Hawaii Symphony. As Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, Falletta became the first woman to lead a major American ensemble. This year she was named as one of the fifty great conductors past and present by Gramophone Magazine. With a discography of almost 120 titles, Falletta is a leading recording artist for Naxos. She has won two individual GRAMMY Awards, including the 2021 GRAMMY Award for Best Choral Performance as Conductor of the world premiere Naxos recording, Richard Danielpour’s “The Passion of Yeshua.” In 2019, she won a GRAMMY Award as conductor of the London Symphony in the Best Classical Compendium category for Spiritualist by Kenneth Fuchs. Her Naxos recording of John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan received two Grammys in 2008. Her 2020 Naxos recording of orchestral music of Florent Schmitt with the Buffalo Philharmonic recently received the Diapason d’Or Award.

Founded in 1935, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) is Buffalo’s leading cultural ambassador. Since 1940, the orchestra’s permanent home has been Kleinhans Music Hall. In 2013, the BPO made its 24th appearance at Carnegie Hall as a participant in the Spring For Music Festival. In March 2018, it became the first American orchestra to perform at the Beethoven Easter Festival in Warsaw, Poland. Over the decades, the BPO has matured in stature under leading conductors, including William Steinberg, Josef Krips, Lukas Foss, Michael Tilson Thomas, Maximiano Valdés, Semyon Bychkov and Julius Rudel. During the tenure of JoAnn Falletta, the BPO has rekindled its distinguished history of radio broadcasts and recordings, including the release of around 50 albums of diverse repertoire on the Naxos and Beau Fleuve Records labels.

The versatile and distinguished American flutist Amy Porter has become one of the most skillful and creative muses for composers of our time. She combines her exceptional musical talent with her passion for scholarship, and her musical achievements have resulted in many awards and accolades for her concerts and discography.

Canadian violinist Nikki Chooi has established himself as an artist of rare versatility. Described as “vigorous, colorful” by the New York Times, he has received critical acclaim in recent engagements at the Harris Theatre in Chicago, Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, Carnegie Hall, Toronto’s Koerner Hall, Montreal’s Place des Arts, as well as appearing as soloist with orchestras across Canada and internationally. Prior to his appointment with the Buffalo Philharmonic, he served as Concertmaster of New York’s Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

Peerless interpreters of both early and new music, The Choir of Trinity Wall Street has redefined the realm of 21st-century vocal music, breaking new ground with artistry described as “thrilling” (The New Yorker), “musically top-notch” (The Wall Street Journal), and “simply superb” (The New York Times). In addition to leading daily liturgical music at Trinity Church, the choir has toured extensively throughout the United States and internationally. The Choir’s recordings include the GRAMMY Award-nominated recordings Luna Pearl Woolf: Fire and Flood and Handel’s Israel in Egypt. Along with NOVUS NY, the choir collaborated on and recorded two Pulitzer Prize-winning operas: Du Yun’s Angel’s Bone and Ellen Reid’s p r i s m.

Lukas Foss Tribute with JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Phil at Carnegie Hall October 3.

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