Carlos Kalmar, Music Director
Thursday, May 12, 2011 at 7:30 P.M.
| CHARLES IVES | The Unanswered Question |
| JOHN ADAMS | The Wound-Dresser Sanford Sylvan, Baritone |
| BENJAMIN BRITTEN | Sinfonia da Requiem, Op. 20 |
| RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS | Symphony No. 4 in F minor |
Listen to the concert
About the Oregon Symphony
Portland’s largest performing-arts group, which was founded in 1896 as the Portland Symphony, is the oldest American orchestra west of the Mississippi. In 1967, it acquired a new name, Oregon Symphony, to reflect both its increasing number of performances outside Portland and its commitment to serve the entire region. Today its 76 musicians, under the artistic leadership of Music Director Carlos Kalmar, perform a full range of concerts – classical to pops, kids’ concerts to one-of-a-kind special events – for an audience that exceeds 225,000 people each season. With its concert at the 2011 Spring for Music Festival in Carnegie Hall, the Oregon Symphony performs for the first time ever in New York City. For more information, visit orsymphony.org.
About Music Director Carlos Kalmar
Carlos Kalmar is in his eighth season as music director of the Oregon Symphony. He was appointed to the post in 2003, and in 2008 his contract was extended until 2013. He is also principal conductor of the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago and music director of the Spanish Radio/Television Orchestra in Madrid.
Outside Portland this season, Kalmar makes his subscription debut with the San Francisco Symphony and conducts with the Cincinnati, Saint Louis and Baltimore symphonies as well as others across Europe and Asia. In recent years, he has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Nashville Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra and other major ensembles in the United States and abroad.
Kalmar’s next recording is of live concerts by the Oregon Symphony with the popular Portland-based group Pink Martini at the orchestra’s home, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. His most recent recordings on the Cedille label include two releases with the Grant Park Orchestra, one of works by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis and the other, Royal Mezzo, with Jennifer Larmore. His 2006 release of the Szymanowski, Martinu and Bartok Violin Concertos with Jennifer Koh and the Grant Park Orchestra was highly acclaimed, as were the 2003 release of the Joachim and Brahms Violin Concertos featuring Rachel Barton and the Chicago Symphony, and 2002′s American Works for Organ and Orchestra featuring David Schrader and the Grant Park Orchestra.
Carlos Kalmar was born in Uruguay to Austrian parents. He began studying violin at age 6, and at 15 enrolled at the Vienna Academy of Music, where he studied conducting with Karl Osterreicher. Kalmar has served as music director of the Hamburg Symphony, Stuttgart Philharmonic, Vienna’s Tonkunstler Orchestra and the Anhaltisches Theater in Dessau, Germany. He lives in Portland and Vienna.
About Portland, Oregon
Known alternately as the City of Roses and The City That Works, Portland acquired its official name by the flip of a coin. Oregon’s largest city is renowned as the model of a metropolitan area that has thrived through controlled growth and development that is effectively integrated with its environment. Set in the natural beauty of the northwest and largely lacking such big-city problems as traffic congestion and pollution, it is laced with parks, gardens and fountains. Though Portland is a thriving commercial center, its primary commitment is to preserving the city’s individuality, the healthful environment and laid-back atmosphere. Increasingly, Portland is known for the quality and quantity of its microbrews – it is often referred to as Beervana – its almost-obsessive coffee culture and its bike-friendly streets.
