| THE ORCHESTRA NOW PERFORMS AT JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER’S ROSE THEATER LED BY GUEST CONDUCTOR JOANN FALLETTA ON SUNDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2022 |
| Violinist Nikki Chooi is Featured Soloist in Works by Ravel and Chausson |
 |  |
| New York, NY, September 15, 2022 — The Orchestra Now welcomes back acclaimed conductor JoAnn Falletta, Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO), for her fourth appearance with TŌN on Sunday October 16 at 3 PM at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater. She will be joined by award-winning Canadian violinist Nikki Chooi, concertmaster of the BPO, for Ravel’s rhapsodic Tzigane and Chausson’s mournful Poème in a program that also offers works by Roberto Sierra, Albert Roussel, and Paul Hindemith. TŌN’s next concert takes place at Carnegie Hall on November 3, with a program highlighting four early 20th century German and Austrian composers whose music was unfairly suppressed during and following World War II, including the U.S. premiere of Hugo Kauder’s Symphony No. 1. |
| JoAnn Falletta Conducts Ravel & More Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall Sunday, October 16, 2022 at 3 PM JoAnn Falletta, conductor Nikki Chooi, violin Roberto Sierra: Fandangos Ernest Chausson: Poème Maurice Ravel: Tzigane Albert Roussel: Bacchus and Ariane Suite No. 2 Paul Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber The program opens with Sierra’s Fandangos, his orchestral treatment of Spain’s most typical dance form, the three-quarter time fandango, which is commonly part of flamenco dance. Sierra is a recipient of the prestigious Tomás Luis de Victoria Prize, Spain’s highest honor for a composer of Spanish or Latin American origin. The following two works feature former Metropolitan Opera Orchestra concertmaster Nikki Chooi: Chausson’s Poème, likely the composer’s best-known and most popular composition, written in response to a request from Eugène Ysaÿe for a violin concerto; and Ravel’s virtuosic Tzigane, inspired by Hungarian violinist Jelly d’Arányi, who premiered the work to great acclaim in London in 1924. Albert Roussel’s Bacchus and Ariane Suite No. 2 comes from his 1931 ballet by the same name. The plot follows the story of Ariadne, who helped Theseus find his way out of a forbidding labyrinth after he slew the monster Minotaur. He later abandons her, but she is saved by Bacchus, the god of wine, and becomes his consort. The afternoon closes with Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber. The work began as a series of movements based on themes by Weber to be used in a ballet, but Hindemith revised the music as the colorful orchestral piece Metamorphosis, premiered by the New York Philharmonic in 1944 to great success. Tickets priced at $25–$50 are available online at jazz.org, by calling CenterCharge at 212.721.6500, or at the Jazz at Lincoln Center box office at Broadway & 60th, Ground Floor. Ticket holders will need to comply with the venue’s health and safety requirements, which can be found here. |
| The Orchestra Now The Orchestra Now (TŌN) currently comprises 62 vibrant young musicians from 13 different countries across the globe: Brazil, China, Colombia, France, Hong Kong, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Peru, Singapore, Taiwan, and the United States. All share a mission to make orchestral music relevant to 21st-century audiences by sharing their unique personal insights in a welcoming environment. Hand-picked from the world’s leading conservatories—including the Yale School of Music, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Royal Academy of Music, and the New England Conservatory of Music—the members of TŌN are enlightening curious minds by giving on-stage introductions and demonstrations, writing concert notes from the musicians’ perspective, and having one-on-one discussions with patrons during intermissions. Conductor, educator, and music historian Leon Botstein, whom The New York Times said “draws rich, expressive playing from the orchestra,” founded TŌN in 2015 as a graduate program at Bard College, where he is also president. TŌN offers both a three-year master’s degree in Curatorial, Critical, and Performance Studies and a two-year advanced certificate in Orchestra Studies. The Orchestra’s home base is the Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center at Bard, where it performs multiple concerts each season and takes part in the annual Bard Music Festival. It also performs regularly at the finest venues in New York, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and others across NYC and beyond. HuffPost, who has called TŌN’s performances “dramatic and intense,” praises these concerts as “an opportunity to see talented musicians early in their careers.” The Orchestra has performed with many distinguished guest conductors and soloists, including Leonard Slatkin, Neeme Järvi, Gil Shaham, Fabio Luisi, Vadim Repin, Hans Graf, Peter Serkin, Gerard Schwarz, Tan Dun, and JoAnn Falletta. Recordings featuring The Orchestra Now include two albums of piano concertos with Piers Lane on Hyperion Records, and a Sorel Classics concert recording of pianist Anna Shelest performing works by Anton Rubinstein with TŌN and conductor Neeme Järvi. Buried Alive with baritone Michael Nagy, released on Bridge Records in August 2020, includes the first recording in almost 60 years—and only the second recording ever—of Othmar Schoeck’s song-cycle Lebendig begraben. Recent releases include an album of piano concertos with Orion Weiss on Bridge Records, and the soundtrack to the motion picture Forte. Recordings of TŌN’s live concerts from the Fisher Center can be heard on Classical WMHT-FM and WWFM The Classical Network, and are featured regularly on Performance Today, broadcast nationwide. For upcoming activities and more detailed information about the musicians, visit ton.bard.edu. |
| Images from left to right: JoAnn Falletta © David Adam Beloff, Nikki Chooi © Den Sweeney |