Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra Makes Carnegie Hall Debut

On Tuesday, February 27 at 8:00 p.m., the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra makes its Carnegie Hall debut in a performance led by Music Director and Conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto in Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage. The exciting program-part of a season-long celebration of the music of composer Philip Glass-features works inspired by a variety of Latin American locations, including Glass' Days and Nights in Rocinha-the composer's colorfully scored, evocative tribute to a Rio de Janeiro favela, known for its samba school, and La noche de los Mayas-a suite drawn from a now-lost 1939 film score by Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas. The evening will conclude with Glass' Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra, a virtuosic showcase for the evening's two soloists-Jim Atwood and Paul Yancich--who play nine timpani between them.

As Glass is one of the most frequently programmed composers of our time, Carnegie Hall invited orchestras from across the United States to submit programs that place his important works in illuminating contexts. The Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra emerged as one of two orchestras selected for the series, chosen in part by Glass himself.

The orchestra's debut concert at Carnegie Hall marks the LPO's first return to New York City since New Orleans' recovery from Hurricane Katrina. The orchestra last appeared in New York in 2005, performing in a joint concert with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center, benefitting LPO musicians affected by the disaster. Since that time, the orchestra has resurged artistically under the direction of Carlos Miguel Prieto, their music director since 2005. In fall 2015, Prieto and the LPO reopened the historic Orpheum Theater after a $13 million renovation. The ensemble has also been committed to serving their community through music education. The LPO has had a thriving partnership with Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute for the last six seasons presenting Link Up to New Orleans students in grades 3-5 and, more recently, taking part in WMI's PlayUSA program.

This February 27 performance is part of Philip Glass's residency as holder of Carnegie Hall's Richard and Barbara Debs Composer's Chair for the 2017-2018 season. Additional upcoming concerts featuring the composer's music include the Philip Glass Ensemble (February 16, also webcast live on medici.tv); So Percussion and JACK Quartet (March 6); and the Pacific Symphony led by Carl St.Clair (April 21).

Carlos Miguel Prieto's charismatic conducting and dynamic, expressive musical interpretations have led to major engagements and popular acclaim throughout North America, Europe, and around the world. The 2017-2018 season marks his twelfth as music director of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), during which he and the orchestra have been leaders in the cultural renewal of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School, Prieto is considered to be a highly influential cultural leader and the leading Mexican conductor of his generation. He has been the music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México (OSN) since 2007. Having conducted over 100 world premieres of works by Mexican and American composers, Prieto is renowned for championing and commissioning the music of Latin American composers. In November 2016, he led the OSN on a critically-acclaimed nine-concert tour of Germany and Austria, performing the works of Mexican and Latin American composers, with stops including Vienna's Musikverein.

A passionate proponent of music education, Prieto served as principal conductor of the Youth Orchestra of the Americas from its inception until 2011 when he was appointed music director. In early 2010, he conducted the YOA alongside Valery Gergiev at Carnegie Hall on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the World Economic Forum. He returns to New York in July 2018 as conductor of NYO2, Carnegie Hall's annual summer program for outstanding American instrumentalists, ages 14-17. Prieto will work with top musicians from American orchestras to train these talented young players, leading them in performances at Miami's New World Center and Carnegie Hall.

The Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) is dedicated to maintaining live orchestral music and a full-scale symphonic orchestra as an integral part of the cultural and educational life of the New Orleans area, the entire state of Louisiana, and the Gulf South region. Formed in 1991, the LPO is the oldest full-time musician-governed and collaboratively-operated orchestra in the United States.

The LPO offers a full 36-week season with more than 120 performances, including classics, light classics, pops, education, family, park and community engagement concerts in New Orleans and across multi-parish areas. In addition, the LPO collaborates with and provides orchestral support for other cultural and performing arts organizations, including New Orleans Opera Association, New Orleans Vocal Arts Chorale, New Orleans Ballet Association and Delta Festival Ballet.

Philip Glass's unique music has made him a cultural icon, reaching across generations and genres-and even beyond the world of music. His wide-ranging collaborations with artists across from every discipline-including choreographer Twyla Tharp, poet Allen Ginsberg, and filmmaker Martin Scorsese-has fascinated opera, dance, pop, and rock audiences for more than half a century. His catalogue of visionary works-known for both hypnotic and dramatic structures and shape-shifting motifs-are landmarks of a mid-century compositional movement that pivoted from serialism and atonality toward a more direct and rhythmic style.

Glass was born in 1937 and grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. He studied at The University of Chicago, The Juilliard School, and at the Aspen Music Festival and School with Darius Milhaud. He later moved to Europe, where he studied with the legendary pedagogue Nadia Boulanger (who also taught Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, and Leonard Bernstein), returning to New York to work closely with the sitar virtuoso and composer Ravi Shankar and study with Shankar's legendary tabla player, Alla Rakha. In 1967, he formed the Philip Glass Ensemble-seven musicians playing keyboards and a variety of woodwinds, amplified and fed through a mixer.

The new musical style evolved by Glass was eventually dubbed "minimalism." Glass himself never liked the term and preferred to speak of himself as a composer of "music with repetitive structures." There has been nothing "minimalist" about his musical output. In the past 25 years, Glass has composed more than twenty operas, large and small; eleven symphonies; two piano concertos and concertos for violin, piano, timpani, and saxophone quartet and orchestra; soundtracks to films ranging from new scores for the stylized classics of Jean Cocteau to Errol Morris's documentary about former defense secretary Robert McNamara; string quartets; a growing body of work for solo piano and organ. He has collaborated with Paul Simon, Linda Ronstadt, Yo-Yo Ma, and Doris Lessing, among many others. He presents lectures, workshops, and solo keyboard performances around the world, and continues to appear regularly with the Philip Glass Ensemble.