Posted April 17, 2019
CONTACT: ANGELA WHITEHEAD
Communications & Media Manager
Dayton Performing Arts Alliance
Phone 937-224-3521 x1138
awhitehead@daytonperformingarts.org
DAYTON, OH (April 17, 2019) – On Friday, May 10, 2019 and Saturday, May 11, 2019 at 8:00 pm in the Mead Theatre of the Schuster Center, Guest Conductor John Mauceri will lead the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra will in the seventh concert in the 2018–2019 Premier Health Masterworks Series, Shostakovich 5: Mauceri Meets Daurov. The DPO invites guest cellist Adrian Daurov to the stage for the magnificent Masterworks concert. Conductor John Mauceri is the Erma R. and Hampden W. Catterton Endowed Guest Artist for this DPAA Vistas Season.
Guest conductor John Mauceri and Dayton Philharmonic Maestro Neal Gittleman have many things in common, but most of all, they share a deep, abiding respect for and appreciation of the great American composer, conductor, and educator Leonard Bernstein. Neal owes many of his formative musical influences to Lenny and the Young People’s Concerts which were aired on CBS from 1958 through 1972. Both conductors have championed Leonard Bernstein’s music in their lives and from the podium. In 1972, John was invited to be Bernstein’s assistant for a new production of Carmen at the Met. This began an association between the two that would span 18 years. Neal brought Bernstein’s MASS to the Schuster stage in 2011 for its magnificent Dayton debut.
So, it is most appropriate that John would include Three Meditations from MASS on his Dayton conducting debut program. The excepts convey many of MASS’ dramatic highlights as well as the virtuosic talents of our guest cellist Adrian Daurov. “Adrian Daurov is a dazzling cellist with soul and technique to burn…” says David Del Tredici, Pulitzer Prize–winning American composer!
Adrian also performs the solo role for Max Bruch’s immensely popular and deeply reflective Kol nidrei (All Vows) for cello and orchestra. Styled as an adagio based on Hebrew melodies, its opening theme, which also lends the piece its title, comes from the Kol Nidrei prayer, which is recited during the evening service of Yom Kippur.
Works from two 20th-century Russian masters open and close the program. The specific origins of the Hebrew themes in Prokofiev’s Overture on Hebrew Themes, which opens the evening, are lost in the mists of time. The cello and clarinet take prominent roles in this enchanting work.
The program concludes with Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, which stands tall in the history of classical literature. After receiving a fierce rebuke in 1936 over his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District from the Soviet newspaper Pravda, Shostakovich decided to put his more modern “formalist” symphony, the Fourth, into mothballs. In its place, he brought out his Fifth Symphony, a work which received an exuberant response, triggering a turning point in Shostakovich’s life and mitigating Stalin’s ire, at least for a while. Full of rich and forceful sonorities, remarkable transformations, and surprising juxtapositions and seasoned with artfully conceived irony, Shostakovich’s “reply to just criticism” is actually a deep expression of his views as a Soviet citizen who happens to be one of the most important artistic voices of the century.
Maestro John Mauceri is an internationally recognized figure in the world of music: classical, film, and Broadway. He is the winner of Tony, Grammy, Olivier, Billboard, Edison Klassiek, two Diapason d’or, three Emmy, and four DeutscheSchallplatten awards, and he served for 15 years on the faculty of Yale University and 7 years as chancellor of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
A native of St. Petersburg, Russia, cellist Adrian Daurov is one of the most dazzling artists of his generation. Based in New York and trained at Juilliard, this award-winning cellist has performed on major concert stages including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and Merkin Hall and with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician.
Tickets for Shostakovich 5: Mauceri Meets Daurov begin at $12 and are available at Ticket Center Stage (937) 228-3630 or online at www.daytonperformingarts.org. Senior, teacher and student discounts are available for both concerts at the box office. For more information or to order subscriptions, including flexible subscription types that include performances by Dayton Philharmonic, Dayton Opera and Dayton Ballet, visit www.daytonperformingarts.org.
###
About the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance
The Dayton Performing Arts Alliance was formed in July 2012 as the result of a groundbreaking and innovative merger between the Dayton Ballet, the Dayton Opera, and the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra. Together, they are the largest performing arts organization in the community, offering a tremendous variety of performance and education programs and setting a new standard for artistic excellence. Dayton Performing Arts Alliance performances are made possible in part by Montgomery County and Culture Works, the single largest source of community funds for the arts and culture in the Miami Valley. The Dayton Performing Arts Alliance also receives partial funding from the Ohio Arts Council, a state agency created to foster and encourage the development of the arts and to preserve Ohio’s cultural heritage. Funding from the Ohio Arts Council is an investment of state tax dollars that promotes economic growth, educational excellence, and cultural enrichment for all Ohio residents. In 2013, The Dayton Performing Arts Alliance was thrilled to be one of five performing arts organizations in the country selected to receive a three-year “Music Alive” grant from New Music USA and the League of American Orchestras. The Dayton Performing Arts Alliance is the proud recipient of a 2017-2018 Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.