Sasha Cooke to Perform with Greenwich Village Orchestra, 2/9

On Sunday, February 9 at 3:00pm, The Greenwich Village Orchestra, led by Metropolitan Opera conductor Pierre Vallet, will perform a concert to include excerpts form Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust, Ravel's Shéhérazade with Grammy Award-wining mezzo-soprano Sasha Cook, and Brahms' Symphony No. 4. Now in its 27th season, the ensemble performs at Washington Irving Auditorium (40 Irving Place) near Union Square.

Acclaimed conductor, choral master, vocal coach and pianist Pierre Vallet has been a member of the music staff of the Metropolitan Opera since 1996- initially as pianist and coach and later as cover conductor. He recently made his conducting debut at the Metropolitan Opera leading Gounod's Faust and also at the Gran Teatro del Liceu in Barcelona. A highlight of his 2013/14 opera season includes La Juive for The Göteborg Opera in Sweden with director Günter Krämer, and Hänsel & Gretel at the 2014 Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto.

Acclaimed mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke caused a sensation this June at the San Francisco Opera in the world premiere of The Gospel of Mary Magdalene "in a performance of vocal majesty and theatrical clarity" (San Francisco Chronicle). This season she appears with Alan Gilbert and the NY Philharmonic, Pierre Boulez and the Chicago Symphony, Tugan Sokhiev and the DSO Berlin, Cristian Macelaru and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Jean-Marie Zeituni and the Columbus Symphony, James Gaffigan and the MDR Orchestra of Leipzig, Grant Gershon and the LA Philharmonic, and a European tour with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony. Additional highlights include her debut with Opéra National de Bordeaux, Verdi Requiem with Krzysztof Urbanski and the Indianapolis Symphony, recitals throughout the United States and her debut at Wigmore Hall as well as chamber music performances in Boston, Santa Fe, New York, Portland, and Houston. A sought-after performer and advocate of contemporary music, this season she performs works by John Harbison, Philip Glass, Mohammed Fairouz, and Lowell Liebermann. Premieres of future seasons include works by Mark Gray, Jake Heggie, Laura Kaminsky, Kevin Puts and Joby Talbot. At the English National Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, Ms. Cooke earned rave reviews as Kitty Oppenheimer in John Adams' Doctor Atomic. She is a graduate of the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program and Young Concert Artists. Her recent album "If You Love for Beauty" is available on Yarlung Records.

About the Greenwich Village Orchestra

The Greenwich Village Orchestra was founded in 1986 by a group of musicians from the New York Metropolitan area. The 70-member community orchestra is made up of accountants, actors, artists, attorneys, carpenters, editors, physicians, professors, programmers, retirees, scientists, secretaries, students, and teachers. For over twenty-five years, the Greenwich Village Orchestra has had a single purpose: to bring the best possible performances of great music to listeners. The GVO is committed to making music at the highest possible level and dedicated to enriching the lives of our players and our audience. The performances are emotionally charged, exhilarating experiences that truly delight audiences and the performers alike.

Conductor Pierre Vallet is renowned throughout the world for his superb musicianship, which has led him to work regularly with the world's foremost musicians and opera houses.

Pierre made his début in Tokyo conducting Otello with Tokyo Opera Nomori in 2006. Recent operatic engagements include Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle with Matthias Goerne and the Saito Kinen Festival Orchestra on its debut tour of China and Madama Butterfly at Tokyo Bunka Kaikan. Elsewhere Pierre has conducted Tannhäuser at L'Opéra national de Paris, Otello, Eugene Onegin and Tannhäuser at Tokyo Opera Nomori and Massenet's Manon at the Bolshoi in Moscow.

Pierre Vallet has enjoyed a long-term musical partnership with Seiji Ozawa working closely with him on some forty operatic productions and concerts throughout Japan, the US and Europe, encompassing a large and diverse repertoire. At the Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto he has conducted Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Humperdink's Hänsel & Gretel, and has collaborated on many other productions including, most recently, Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges / L'heure espagnole - directed by Laurent Pelly.

Pierre's symphonic work includes several appearances at the Spoleto Festival USA, and he is a regular guest with the Greenwich Village Orchestra (NYC). Repertoire conducted recently in Spoleto includes works by Fauré, Roussel, Beethoven, Respighi, and Mendelssohn, while in New York recent work includes a Wagner gala with soprano Christine Goerke, Elgar's Sea Pictures with Jennifer Johnson Cano, Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6, Beethoven's Symphony No 4 and Bruch's Scottish Fantasy.

As a pianist, he has performed in duo recitals in both the US and Europe with some of the world's most renowned singers including Natalie Dessay, Maria Guleghina, Ying Huang and Dmitri Hvorostovsky among others. He recently appeared at the Vienna Opera House in concert with Roberto Alagna.

Pierre Vallet has a particular skill and ability in communicating with choruses, not just in the opera house, but also in the great choral works - demonstrated by his work as chorus master for Britten's War Requiem (Saito Kinen Festival Orchestra at Carnegie Hall), La Damnation de Faust, Mahler Symphony No 2, and Schoenberg's Gurrelieder. He has also appeared as conductor and lecturer at the choral festival Tokyo Cantat, where he conducted the closing concert in a program of works by Debussy, Ravel and Kodaly.

A committed educator, Pierre Vallet is a renowned lecturer and guest teacher at the world's premiere training institutions. He has been a regular visitor to the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera, the Steans Music Institute at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, the Tanglewood Music Center, the Wolf Trap Opera company, and the Houston Grand Opera Studio.

Pierre studied conducting and the theory of phenomenology in music with Sergiu Celibidache, and piano at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris and the Conservatoire Nationale Supérieur de Musique de Paris, as well as with Louis Hiltbrand in Geneva and Peter Feuchtwanger in London.