Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Announces Guest Conductor Juanjo Mena for BNY Mellon Grand Classics, 5/29

Elevate your senses and your heart rate with a BNY Mellon Grand Classics concert that takes you from high above the quiet world to a pulse-pounding turn on the dance floor on May 29 and 31 at Heinz Hall.

Led by guest conductor Juanjo Mena, one of Spain's most distinguished conductors, Dance and Flight features Principal Bassoon Nancy Goeres in David Ludwig's Pictures from a Floating World, a piece that emphasizes melodies and fluidity, with the bassoon singing throughout. Debussy's languid impressionistic style, which inspired the Ludwig piece, will be heard in the opening work,"Ibéria," No. 2 fromImages. For the second half, Mena brings the orchestra down from the clouds to the hot-blooded world of dances from his home country and Argentina in a rhythmic and passionate performance of Ginastera's Panambí and Estancia ballet suites and De Falla's energetic Interlude and Dance from his opera La Vida Breve.

Each BNY Mellon Grand Classics concert is part of the Explore & Engage program, which includes pre-concert talks, exhibits, display boards and interactive activities that illuminate the music, composers and the time in which they were created. A pre-concert talk, open to all ticket holders, led by Resident Conductor Fawzi Haimor will occur on stage one hour before each concert.

The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets, ranging in price from $25.75 to $105.75, can be purchased by calling the Heinz Hall box office at 412-392-4900 or visiting pittsburghsymphony.org/danceflight.

The Pittsburgh Symphony would like to recognize and thank BNY Mellon for its 2014-2015 title sponsorship of BNY Mellon Grand Classics. Fairmont Pittsburgh is the official hotel of the Pittsburgh Symphony. Delta Air Lines is the official airline of the Pittsburgh Symphony.

Chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester, United Kingdom, Juanjo Mena is one of Spain's most distinguished international conductors. Following his recent concerts with the symphonies of Los Angeles, Boston, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Toronto, Mena's busy North America 2014-2015 season includes return visits to Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, as well as his debuts with the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. His European highlights this season include his debuts with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Nash Ensemble, as well as concerts with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orquesta Nacional de España and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. A guest of international festivals, Mena has appeared at the Stars of White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Hollywood Bowl, Grant Park (Chicago), Tanglewood and La Folle Journée (Nantes). He recently led the BBC Philharmonic on two tours of Europe and Spain, including performances in Cologne, Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna and Madrid, and performs with them every year at the BBC Proms in London. Throughout Europe, Juanjo Mena has appeared with the Dresden Philharmonic, Munich Radio Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Oslo Philharmonic, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, Milan and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as with all the major orchestras in Spain. His operatic work includes The Flying Dutchman, Salome, Elektra, Ariadne auf Naxos, Duke Bluebeard's Castle and Erwartung and productions including Eugene Onegin in Genoa, The Marriage of Figaro in Lausanne and Billy Budd in Bilbao. He has made several recordings with the BBC Philharmonic, including a disc of works by Manuel de Falla, which was a BBC Music Magazine Recording of the Month; Gabriel Pierné, which was a Gramophone Editor's Choice; and recent releases of music by Montsalvatge, Weber and Turina, which have gained excellent reviews from the specialist music press. He has also recorded a collection of Basque symphonic music with the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra for Naxos, and a critically acclaimed rendering of Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony for Hyperion with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra.

Principal Bassoonist Nancy Goeres joined the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 1984. Prior to coming to Pittsburgh, Goeres held similar positions with Florida Orchestra, The Caracas Philharmonic and the Cincinnati Symphony. In addition to her appearances with the Pittsburgh Symphony, she performs regularly at the leading festivals around the country including Tanglewood, Marlboro, Sarasota, LaJolla and Mainly Mozart festivals, New York's 92nd Street Y Series, Santa Fe Chamber Festival, Music in the Vineyards (CA) and Instrumenta Verano, Puebla, Mexico. She has also toured with Musicians from Marlboro. With Lorin Maazel and the Pittsburgh Symphony, she premiered Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's Bassoon Concerto, commissioned for her by the Pittsburgh Symphony Society. In addition to recording the Zwilich Concerto with the Pittsburgh Symphony and Lorin Maazel on the New World label, she has subsequently performed it with the Chamber Symphony of the Aspen Music Festival and at a conference of the International Double Reed Society. In 2004, she traveled to Cuba to conduct master classes and perform the concerto with the Havana Symphony. Other concerto performances with the Pittsburgh Symphony include Haydn's Sinfonia concertante, John Williams' bassoon concerto, The Five Sacred Trees, the Mozart Bassoon Concerto and the Rossini Bassoon Concerto. An active teacher, Goeres has given master classes in Europe, Canada, Mexico, South America and returns frequently to China. In the United States, she often works with the students of the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music. She is a member of the faculty of the School of Music at Carnegie Mellon University, where she not only trains the next generation of musicians, but also conducts workshops for bassoonists around the country via the Internet. Since 1991, she can be found in the summer teaching and performing with the Aspen Music Festival and School. A native of Lodi, Wisconsin, her principal teachers were Sherman Walt and Richard Lottridge. Goeres holds the Pittsburgh Symphony's Mr. & Mrs. William Genge and Mr. & Mrs. James E. Lee Principal Bassoon Chair. She is also a member of the board of directors of the Woodlands Foundation, which is involved with bringing music to children with disabilities and chronic illness.

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, known for its artistic excellence for more than 119 years, is credited with a rich history of the world's finest conductors and musicians, and a strong commitment to the Pittsburgh region and its citizens. Past music directors have included Fritz Reiner (1938-1948), William Steinberg (1952-1976), Andre Previn (1976-1984), Lorin Maazel (1984-1996) and Mariss Jansons (1995-2004). This tradition of outstanding international music directors was furthered in fall 2008, when Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck became music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony. The orchestra has been at the forefront of championing new American works, and gave the first performance of Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 1 "Jeremiah" in 1944 and John Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine in 1986. The Pittsburgh Symphony has a long and illustrious history in the areas of recordings and radio concerts. As early as 1936, the Pittsburgh Symphony broadcast on the airwaves coast-to-coast and in the late 1970s it made the ground breaking PBS series "Previn and the Pittsburgh." The orchestra has received increased national attention since 1982 through network radio broadcasts on Public Radio International, produced by Classical WQED-FM 89.3, made possible by the musicians of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. With a long and distinguished history of touring both domestically and overseas since 1900-including 36 international tours to Europe, the Far East and South America-the Pittsburgh Symphony continues to be critically acclaimed as one of the world's greatest orchestras.

Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts is owned and operated by Pittsburgh Symphony, Inc., a non-profit organization, and is the year-round home of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. The cornerstone of Pittsburgh's Cultural District, Heinz Hall also hosts many other events that do not feature its world-renowned orchestra, including Broadway shows, comedians, speakers and much more. For a full calendar of upcoming non-symphony events at the hall, visit heinzhall.org