MUSIC

The Houston Symphony presents Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody, Friday -Saturday, March 4-5 at 8pm, and Sunday, March 6 at 2:30pm, in Jones Hall.

Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody was made popular in the 1980 movie Somewhere in Time. Rachmaninoff himself played the first performance of the Rhapsody in Philadelphia, with former Houston Symphony Music Director Leopold Stokowski on the podium. You’ll be dazzled by piano virtuoso Gabriela Montero, known not only for her impeccable technique and musicality, but also for her incredible ability to improvise on any given theme.

Scheduled Program:
Turina: Danzas fantásticas
Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Mozart: Symphony No. 40

Artists:
Juanjo Mena, conductor
Gabriela Montero, piano 

Just appointed Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester, Juanjo Mena is one of the most distinguished conductors of his generation. Also Principal Guest Conductor of the Bergen (Norway) Philharmonic and Chief Guest Conductor at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, he has appeared with most of the principal symphony and chamber orchestras of his native Spain.

Following Mr. Mena’s North American debut with the Baltimore Symphony in 2004, he has been re-engaged every year since then by the orchestra. Other recent and upcoming debuts include the Atlanta Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Houston Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Oregon Symphony and The Philadelphia Orchestra.

Worldwide, Juanjo Mena has appeared with the BBC Philharmonic, Bucharest Philharmonic, Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orquesta Filarmónica de Santiago, Orquesta Sinfônica de São Paulo, Oslo Philharmonic, RAI/Torino, RSO/Berlin, RTVE/Madrid and the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, among others. Future engagements include the Danish Radio Symphony, Dresden Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, New Zealand Symphony, Orchestre National de Lyon, Prague Symphony, and the Real Filharmonía de Galicia. Festival appearances include Grant Park (Chicago), La Folle Journée (Nantes), White Nights Festival (St. Petersburg), and numerous festivals with the Bilbao Symphony.

Also active in opera, Mr. Mena has lead productions of Billy Budd, Eugene Onegin, Le Nozze di Figaro, Der Fliegende Holländer, Salome, Elektra, Ariadne auf Naxos, Bluebeard’s Castle and Erwartung. He will conduct Tristan und Isolde in Bilbao in the autumn of 2011.

With the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Mena has recorded a complete collection of Basque symphonic music (Naxos). A CD of works by Gabriel Pierné with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra will be released on Chandos in 2011.

Born in Vitoria, Juanjo Mena began his musical training at the Vitoria-Gasteiz Conservatory (Basque Country). He studied composition and orchestration with Carmelo Bernaola and conducting with Enrique Garcia-Asensio at the Royal Higher Conservatory of Music in Madrid, where he received the Prize of Honor. Awarded a Guridi-Bernaolo Scholarship, he pursued further conducting studies in Munich with Sergiu Celibidache. In 2002, Mr. Mena was awarded the Ojo Critico Prize by Radio Nacional de España in recognition of his career and dedication to contemporary music.

Gabriela Montero’s (pictured above) visionary interpretations and unique improvisational gifts have won her a quickly expanding audience and devoted following around the world. Born in Caracas Venezuela, Gabriela gave her first public performance at the age of five. Aged eight she made her concerto debut with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra conducted by Jose Antonio Abreu and was granted a scholarship from the Venezuelan Government to study in the USA.

Gabriela Montero’s 2009-2010 season takes her across continents for performances of her trademark improvisations and with major orchestras. She begins the season performing Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and John Williams’ Air and Simple Gifts with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. As the season progresses, Ms. Montero will debut with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra performing works of Mozart and Grieg respectively before a return visit to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. In Europe, Montero will appear with the Rotterdam Philharmonic and James Gaffigan before performances with the Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra in March.

In addition to her orchestral engagements, Ms. Montero will give several recital performances as a soloist and with French cellist Gautier Capucon with whom she frequently collaborates. North American engagements include appearances at the Perimeter Institute, Van Cliburn Foundation, Cornell University and Honens International Piano Competition in the fall, and at the Savannah Music Festival in the spring. In May, Montero and Capucon will go on a European recital tour that will includes performances in Italy, France and Germany. Ms. Montero will finish the season with festival appearances at the Ravinia Festival, Tuscan Sun Festival, Verbier Festival, and Bergen International Festival among others.

In both recital and after performing a concerto, Gabriela often invites her audience to participate in asking for a melody for improvisations. They ask for themes from a Mozart Symphony to Star Wars and at times, even the orchestra have a chance to suggest a theme if they so wish. “When improvising,” Gabriela says, “I connect to my audience in a completely unique way – and they connect with me. Because improvisation is such a huge part of who I am, it is the most natural and spontaneous way I can express myself. I have been improvising since my hands first touched the keyboard, but for many years I kept this aspect of my playing secret. Then Martha Argerich heard me improvising one day and encouraged me to make this part of my concert presentations. It was Martha who persuaded me that it was possible to combine my career as a serious ‘classical’ artist with the side of me that is rather unique.”

Gabriela’s first EMI/Angel CD consisted of one disc of music by Rachmaninov, Chopin and Liszt and a second of her deeply felt and technically brilliant improvisations. Standing alongside inspired performances of core repertoire, improvisations plays as important a part in Gabriela’s life as it did for Bach and Mozart and, to show the link, her EMI CD Bach and Beyond is a complete disc of improvisations on themes by Bach which topped the charts for several months. In February 2008 her follow up EMI recording of improvisations Baroque, was released with great critical acclaim receiving 5 star reviews from BBC Music Magazine and Classic FM. In 2009 Baroque received a Grammy nomination both in the Best Classical Crossover Album category and as one of the albums in the Best Producer Category.

Gabriela’s Bach and Beyond was given the “Choc de la musique de l’année” award in 2006 from The French Magazine Le Monde de la Musique. She rounded off the year 2006 with the Keyboard Instrumentalist of the Year at the ECHO Preis Award in Munich and in 2007, they awarded her the Klassik-ohne-Grenzen Award for her Bach and Beyond CD for the second year in a row. Gabriela has also been heard on NPR’s Performance Today “Sing It and Wing It”, where listeners call in with a melody upon which Gabriela improvises, and has also been profiled on CBS’s 60 Minutes. In January 2009, at the invitation of President-Elect Barack Obama, Ms. Montero played in the quartet performance of John Williams’ Air and Simple Gifts at the 56th Inaugural Ceremony.