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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 31, 2011
CONTACT: Brenda Kean Tabor
(202) 533-1886
[email protected]
André Previn conducts the NHK Symphony Orchestra of Japan
in Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5
Daniel Müller-Schott performs Elgar’s Cello Concerto
Washington, D.C.- Japan’s NHK Symphony
Orchestra performs at the Music Center at
Strathmore with Principal Guest Conductor André
Previn and cellist Daniel Müller-Schott on
March 16 in their fourth performance for WPAS
and their first at Strathmore. The orchestra also
participates in Carnegie Hall’s JapanNYC festival
this season.
A top Japanese orchestra, the NHK
Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1926 as the
New Symphony Orchestra and was briefly called
the Japan Symphony Orchestra before being
renamed the NHK Symphony Orchestra after
André Previn
Photo: Lillian Birnbaum
receiving full financial support from Nippon Hoso
Kyokai (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) in 1951.
The Orchestra has been conducted by many of the world’s most renowned
conductors, including Herbert von
Who:
NHK Symphony Orchestra of Japan
André Previn, conductor
Daniel Müller-Schott, cello
The Music Center at Strathmore
Wednesday, March 16, 2011 at 8 p.m.
Where:
When:
Program:
Takemitsu
Green
Prokofiev
Symphony No. 5
Elgar
Cello Concerto
Tickets: $20-$65, available at www.wpas.org
or (202) 785-9727
Karajan and Ernest Ansermet, and has
worked with some of the world’s most
celebrated soloists. The Orchestra has
won worldwide acclaim for its 29
overseas concert tours which began in
1960, its presentation of
commissioned premiere works of world famous composers, as well as for its audio
recordings which have been released by some of the world’s most respected music labels.
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In recent years, the Orchestra has presented approximately 120 concerts annually in
Japan, including 54 subscription concerts at NHK Hall and Suntory Hall in Tokyo, which
were broadcast on NHK television and radio.
Conductors who are closely associated with the NHK Symphony Orchestra include
Charles Dutoit (Music Director Emeritus), Vladimir Ashkenazy (Conductor Laureate),
Wolfgang Sawallisch (Honorary Conductor Laureate), Herbert Blomstedt (Honorary
Conductor), Yuzo Toyama (Permanent Conductor), Tadaaki Otaka (Permanent Conductor)
and André Previn (Principal Guest Conductor).
A regular guest with the world’s major orchestras, both in concert and on recordings,
conductor, composer and pianist André Previn frequently works with the Boston Symphony
Orchestra, New York Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic. In addition, he has held chief
artistic posts with such orchestras as the Houston Symphony, London Symphony, Los
Angeles Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony and Royal Philharmonic orchestras. In 2009,
Previn was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra.
As a pianist, André Previn is involved in recording and performing song recitals,
chamber music and jazz and has given recitals with Renée Fleming at Lincoln Center and
with Barbara Bonney at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He regularly gives chamber music
concerts with Anne-Sophie Mutter and Lynn Harrell, as well as with members of the Boston
Symphony and London Symphony orchestras, and the Vienna Philharmonic.
André Previn has enjoyed a number of successes as a composer. His first opera, A
Streetcar Named Desire, was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque. Other highlights include
the premiere of his Double Concerto for Violin and Double Bass for Anne-Sophie Mutter and
Roman Patkoló, premiered by the Boston Symphony in 2007. His Harp Concerto
commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony premiered in 2008; his work Owls was premiered
by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2008; his second opera, Brief Encounter,
commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera, premiered in 2009; and his double concerto for
violin and viola, written for Anne-Sophie Mutter and Yuri Bashmet, received its premiere in
2009. Carnegie Hall presented four concerts for his 80th birthday celebrations in 2009,
showcasing the diversity of his career. Other recent highlights include concerts with the
Leipzig Gewandhaus, London Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, and the Czech
Philharmonic at the Prague Spring Festival. André Previn records for Deutsche
Grammophon.
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Previn has received a number of awards and honors for his outstanding musical
accomplishments, including both the Austrian and German Cross of Merit, and the Glenn
Gould Prize. He is the recipient of Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Kennedy Center,
the London Symphony Orchestra, and Classic FM Gramophone, and this year was honored
with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy. He has also
received several Grammy awards for recordings, including the CD of his violin concerto
Anne-Sophie and Bernstein’s Serenade featuring Anne-Sophie Mutter together with the
Boston and London Symphony orchestras.
Cellist Daniel Müller-Schott quickly rose to
international stature after winning the International
Tchaikovsky competition at age 16. He has studied with
some of the great cellists, including Heinrich Schiff and
Steven Isserlis and became the mentee of violinist AnneSophie Mutter. Müller-Schott has appeared in concert
worldwide with such renowned conductors as Vladimir
Daniel Műller-Schott
Ashkenazy, Charles Dutoit, Alan Gilbert, Christoph
Eschenbach, Bernard Haitink, Kurt Masur and André Previn,
and has performed all over Europe and the United States with such internationally acclaimed
orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, the Boston and Chicago Symphony Orchestras,
the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, London and the City of Birmingham
Symphony Orchestra. He debuted at the Hollywood Bowl Festival with the Los Angeles
Philharmonic.
Müller-Schott’s first CD of the Bach suites was very well-received. In July 2007, the
New York Times wrote, “The magnetic young German cellist Daniel Müller-Schott
administered a dose of adrenaline ... a fearless player with technique to burn ... But even
more impressive were his gorgeous, plush tone and his meticulous attention to expression.”
Politiken (Denmark) said, “The world now has a new great cellist.” Said BBC Music
Magazine in 2008 of his Shostakovich CD, “This latest warmly recorded release from
German cellist Daniel Müller-Schott must rank amongst the finest.” He was awarded the
Vierteljahrespreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik for his recordings of Elgar and Walton’s
Cello Concertos and for his release of the Shostakovich Cello Concertos recorded with the
Bavarian Radio Orchestra. His recordings can be found on the Orfeo, Deutsche
Grammophon, Pentatone and EMI Classics labels and have won other awards, including the
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Gramophone “Editor’s Choice,” the Strad “Selection” and the Vierteljahrespreis der
Deutschen Schallplattenkritik. A new disc of the Schumann and Volkmann cello concertos,
recorded with the NDR Symphony Orchestra under Christoph Eschenbach was released in
the autumn of 2009 to critical acclaim. The second part of the Beethoven cycle with Angela
Hewitt was released in November 2009.
In the 2009/10 season, Müller-Schott was heard playing Saint-Saëns’ First Cello
Concerto under Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in Germany,
Austria and Turkey and the Elgar Cello Concerto in Spain with the Euskadi Symphony
Orchestra, in Mexico with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México under Carlos Miguel
Prieto and with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra.
A regular at many summer festivals including Tanglewood and Aspen, SchleswigHolstein, and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Müller-Schott has partnered with such outstanding
young artists as Julia Fischer and Jonathan Biss, Nicolas Angelich, Renaud Capuçon, Julia
Fischer, Jonathan Gilad, Viviane Hagner, Angela Hewitt, Steven Isserlis, Anne-Sophie
Mutter, André Previn and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, as well the Fauré Quartet, the Quatuor
Ebène and the Vogler Quartet.
Daniel Müller-Schott performs on the “Ex Shapiro” Matteo Goffriller cello, made in
Venice in 1727. He currently lives in his home town of Munich. In his leisure time he is a
keen jogger and soccer player.
Downloadable high-resolution images are available at www.wpas.org
Funded in part by the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in part by National
Endowment for the Arts.
WPAS is committed to making every event accessible for persons with disabilities. Please call the WPAS Ticket Services Office
for more information on accessibility to the various theaters in which our performances are held. Services offered vary from venue to venue
and may require advance notice.
Washington Performing Arts Society has created profound opportunities for connecting the community to artists, in both education and
performance. Through live events in venues that criss-cross the landscape of the D.C. metropolitan area, the careers of emerging artists
are guided, and established artists who have bonded with the local audience are invited to return. In this way, the space between artists
and audiences is eliminated, so that all may share life-long opportunities to deepen their cultural knowledge, enrich their lives, and expand
their understanding and compassion of the world through the universal language of the arts
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