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  • ACCLAIMED CONDUCTOR SIR ANDREW DAVIS LEADS THE LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC IN AN ALL-MOZART EVENING AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL
  • Jul. 22, 2008
  • Program Features Young Pianist Orion Weiss and Mezzo-Soprano Isabel Leonard in her Hollywood Bowl Debut

    TUESDAY AND THURSDAY, JULY 22 AND 24, 2008, AT 8 PM

    Media Sponsor: Time Warner Cable

    Internationally-acclaimed conductor Sir Andrew Davis leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in an all-Mozart program featuring pianist Orion Weiss and the Bowl debut of mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard on Tuesday and Thursday, July 22 and 24, at 8 p.m. The performance includes the Overture to La clemenza di Tito, Ch’io mi scordi di te for solo voice and orchestra, the lyrical Piano Concerto No. 17 in G, K. 453, the solo motet Exsultate, jubilate, and Symphony No. 38, “Prague,” first performed in 1787 in Prague where the composer had a devoted following just weeks after his Le nozze di Figaro opened there.

    Sir Andrew Davis is no stranger to the Hollywood Bowl, nor the LA PHIL. He first appeared on the Bowl stage with the orchestra in 1974, and has since led them many times at the Bowl and in other venues. He has served as music director and principal conductor of Lyric Opera of Chicago since 2000, serves as conductor laureate of the Toronto Symphony and the BBC Symphony Orchestra and is former music director of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera. He has conducted all of the world's major orchestras, from the Chicago Symphony to the Berlin Philarmonic to the Royal Concertgebouw, and at opera houses internationally including the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala and the Bayreuth Festival.

    Pianist Orion Weiss has already established himself as an extraordinary young talent, described as exhibiting great maturity and depth bolstered by remarkable technical skills. He has been heard with an ever-growing list of symphony orchestras including those of Cleveland, Baltimore, Phoenix and Santa Rosa (in the inaugural concert of the Festival on the Green), and the National Symphony Orchestra.

    American singer Isabel Leonard, already making waves in the classical music world, made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Stéphano in Roméo et Juliette under the direction of Plácido Domingo in September 2007. These performances were televised live in cinemas across the world and on PBS.

    SIR ANDREW DAVIS, born in 1944 in Hertfordshire, England, studied at King’s College, Cambridge, where he was an organ scholar before taking up the baton. His diverse repertoire ranges from baroque to contemporary, and his vast conducting credits span the symphonic and operatic and choral worlds. In addition to the core symphonic and operatic composers, he is a great proponent of 20th century works including those by Janá?ek, Messiaen, Boulez, Elgar, Tippett and Britten. With the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Maestro Davis has led concerts at the London Proms and on tour to Hong Kong, Japan, the U.S., and Europe. Davis is also a prolific recording artist who has recorded for Decca, Deutsche Grammophone, Warner Classics International, Capriccio, EMI and CBS. In 1992, Maestro Davis was created a Commander of the British Empire for his services to British Music, and in 1999, he was made a Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honours List. In 1991, he received the Royal Philharmonic Society/Charles Heidsieck Music Award. In the 2008/09 season he conducts productions of Lulu, Madama Butterfly, Tristan und Isolde, and The Abduction from the Seraglio at Lyric Opera of Chicago and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at La Scala. He will be seen on the podium with the Munich Philharmonic, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, the Deutsche Symphony Orchestra, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, and the orchestras of Melbourne, Toronto, Detroit, La Fenice and of RAI Torino when they perform at the Besancon Festival. Maestro Davis also returns to the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonia, and to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He and his wife, soprano Gianna Rolandi, reside in Chicago where she is the Director of the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago.

    Twenty-four-year-old American pianist ORION WEISS won the 2005 Juilliard William Petschek Award and made his New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall in April 2005. He was awarded a 2002 Avery Fisher Career Grant and is a winner of both the Gina Bachauer Scholarship (2002, 2003) at the Juilliard School and the Mieczyslaw Munz Scholarship competitions. In 1999, he received the Gilmore Young Artist Award, an honor granted by the Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival to promising young American pianists. Weiss made his debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl (with pianist Shai Wosner) in 2005. Weiss has performed recitals in all parts of the United States in recent years including the Ravinia Rising Star Series, the Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis, the Interlochen Music Festival, the Sanibel Music Festival, and the Xavier University Music Series, as well as Torrance, Malibu, and San Luis Obispo, CA; El Paso, TX; Athens, GA; and many others. In 1999, Weiss made his Cleveland Orchestra debut performing Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1 and the following month, with less than 24 hours' notice, Weiss stepped in to replace André Watts for a performance of Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. He was immediately invited to return for a performance of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto in October 1999. In addition to his solo work, Weiss has a keen interest in chamber music. He was a member of the Chamber Music Society Two program of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center from 2002 to 2004. He has also performed at the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival with cellists Lynn Harrell, Alisa Weilerstein and Christopher Rex; clarinetist David Shifrin; and the Georgian Chamber Players alongside members of the Atlanta Symphony at Spivey Hall. In 2001, he performed with Itzhak Perlman at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall in a benefit for the Perlman Music Program.

    ISABEL LEONARD, in addition to her appearances with the Metropolitan Opera,has appeared with the Santa Fe Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Saint Louis Symphony, Chicago Symphony and the Cincinnati May Festival has appeared with the Chicago Opera Theater, the Santa Fe Opera, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She made her professional U.S. opera debut as Stéphano in The Atlanta Opera’s production of Roméo et Juliette in February 2007. The previous summer, she made her European and professional stage debut as Zerlina in Don Giovanni with the Opera National de Bordeaux and her American orchestral debut in de Falla’s The Three-Cornered Hat with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood Festival, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. Leonard participated in a master class with James Levine through the Marilyn Horne Foundation at Carnegie Hall and appeared with the New York Philharmonic in Bernstein’s Candide, directed by Lonny Price and conducted by Marin Alsop. She is the recipient of the Richard Gold Award of the Shoshana Foundation (2007), the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation Award (2006), the William Schuman Graduation Prize of the Juilliard School (2006), the Makiko Narumi Prize of the Juilliard School (2005), the Marilyn Horne Foundation Award of the Music Academy of the West (2005), and was a winner of the Giulio Gari Competition (2005). A New York native, Leonard received both her Bachelor and Master degrees in music from the Juilliard School. She studies with Edith Bers and has also studied with Marilyn Horne, Brian Zeger, Warren Jones, Margo Garrett, Denise Massé and Janine Reiss.

    One of the largest natural amphitheaters in the world, with a seating capacity of nearly 18,000, the HOLLYWOOD BOWL has been the summer home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic since its official opening in 1922, and in 1991 gave its name to the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, a resident ensemble that has filled a special niche in the musical life of Southern California. The 2004 season introduced audiences to a revitalized Hollywood Bowl, featuring a newly-constructed shell and stage and the addition of four stadium screens enhancing stage views in the venue. To this day, $1 buys a seat at the top of the Bowl for many of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's concerts. While the Bowl is best known for its sizzling summer nights, during the day California's youngest patrons enjoy "SummerSounds: Music for Kids at the Hollywood Bowl," the Southland's most popular summer arts festival for children, now in its 40th season. Attendance figures over the past several decades have soared: in 1980 the Bowl first topped the half-million mark and close to one million admissions have been recorded. In February 2008, the Hollywood Bowl was named Best Major Outdoor Concert Venue for the fourth year in a row at the 19th Annual Pollstar Concert Industry Awards. The Bowl's summer music festival has become as much a part of a Southern California summer as beaches and barbecues, the Dodgers, and Disneyland.

    EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:

    TUESDAY, JULY 22, 2008, AT 8 PM

    THURSDAY, JULY 24, 2008, AT 8 PM


    HOLLYWOOD BOWL, 2301 N. Highland Ave. in Hollywood



    MOZART UNDER THE STARS



    LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC

    SIR ANDREW DAVIS, conductor

    ORION WEISS, piano

    ISABEL LEONARD, mezzo-soprano



    MOZART Overture to La clemenza di Tito

    MOZART Ch’io mi scordi di te

    MOZART Piano Concerto No. 17 in G, K. 453

    MOZART Exsultate, jubilate

    MOZART Symphony No. 38, “Prague”



    Media Sponsor: Time Warner Cable.

    Tickets ($1 - $95) are on sale now at HollywoodBowl.com, at the Hollywood Bowl Box Office (Tuesday–Saturday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.), or by calling Ticketmaster at 213.480.3232, and at all Ticketmaster outlets. Groups of 10 or more may be eligible for a 20% discount, subject to availability; call 323.850.2050 for further details. For general information or to request a brochure, call 323.850.2000.

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  • Contact:

    Adam Crane, acrane@laphil.org, 213-972-3422; Laura Stegman, laura_stegman@hotmail.com, 310.470.6321; For photos: 213.972.3034