ASO to Present 'Elliott Carter: An American Original' at Carnegie Hall, 11/17

A year after his death at age 103, the American Symphony Orchestra pays tribute to Elliott Carter, a life-long New Yorker, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and one of the greatest composers of the second half of the 20th century. This mini-retrospective including six of the finest orchestral works by the prolific American composer, who published more than 50 of his works after the age of 90, reveals the range and extent of Carter's inventive genius and provides a rare chance to hear an all-Elliott Carter program, in the presence of members of the Carter family.

Maestro Leon Botstein shares the stories behind the music in a lively 30-minute Conductor's Notes Q&A at 1pm in Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage. Free for all ticket holders.

The concert is set for Sunday, November 17, 2013 at 2pm at Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium, Perelman Stage), 57th Street and 7th Avenue.

PROGRAM:

An All-Elliott Carter Program
Pocahontas
Clarinet Concerto
Sound Fields
Warble for Lilac-Time
Voyage
Concerto for Orchestra

Anthony McGill, clarinet
Mary MacKenzie, soprano
Teresa Buchholz, mezzo-soprano

Tickets: $25 / $35 / $50 and subscriptions are available at americansymphony.org and by phone at 212-868-9276.Tickets are also available at CarnegieHall.org, at the Carnegie box office, or by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800. The Conductor's Notes Q&A at 1pm in Stern Auditorium is free with concert ticket.

About American Symphony Orchestra: The American Symphony Orchestra was founded 50 years ago by Leopold Stokowski, with the avowed intention of making orchestral music accessible and affordable for everyone. Under Music Director Leon Botstein, Stokowski's mission is not only intact but thrives. And beyond that, the ASO has become a pioneer in what The Wall Street Journal called "a new concept in orchestras," presenting concerts curated around various themes drawn from the visual arts, literature, politics, and history, and unearthing rarely-performed masterworks for well-deserved revival. These concerts are performed in the Vanguard Series at Carnegie Hall.

The orchestra also gives the celebrated concert series Classics Declassified at Peter Norton Symphony Space, and regularly performs at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, where it appears in a winter subscription series as well as Bard's annual SummerScape Festival and the Bard Music Festival. Many of the world's most accomplished soloists have performed with the ASO, among them Yo-Yo Ma, Deborah Voigt, and Sarah Chang. In addition to CDs released by the Telarc, New World, Bridge, Koch, and Vanguard labels, many live performances by the American Symphony are now available for digital download. In many cases, these are the only existing recordings of some of the rare works that have been rediscovered in ASO performances.

About Leon Botstein: Leon Botstein recently celebrated his 20th year as Music Director and Principal Conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra. He is also co-Artistic Director of the Summerscape and Bard Music Festivals at Bard College, where Mr. Botstein has been President since 1975. He is also Conductor Laureate of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, where he served as Music Director from 2003-2011. Mr. Botstein leads an active schedule as a guest conductor all over the world, and can be heard on numerous recordings. The Los Angeles Times called this summer's Los Angeles Philharmonic performance under Mr. Botstein "the all-around most compelling performance of anything I've heard all summer at the Bowl."

Highly regarded as a music historian, Mr. Botstein is the editor of The Musical Quarterly and the author of numerous articles and books. Last year he was invited to give the prestigious Tanner Lectures in Berkeley, CA. For his contributions to music he has received the award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Harvard University's prestigious Centennial Award, as well as the Cross of Honor, First Class from the government of Austria. In 2009 he received Carnegie Foundation's Academic Leadership Award, and in 2011 was inducted into the American Philosophical Society. He is also the 2012 recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award for the Elevation of Music in Society. In 2013, following in the footsteps of Sir John Barbirolli, Otto Klemperer, and others, Mr. Botstein received the Bruckner Society's Julio Kilenyi Medal of Honor for his interpretations of that composer's music.

About Elliott Carter (December 11, 1908 - November 5, 2012): Twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the first composer to receive the United States National Medal of Arts, one of the few composers ever awarded Germany's Ernst Von Siemens Music Prize, and in 1988 made "Commandeur dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres" by the Government of France, as well as receiving the insignia of Commander of the Legion of Honor in 2012, Elliott Carter is internationally recognized as one America's leading voices of the classical music tradition. He was a recipient of the Prince Pierre Foundation Music Award and was one of the few living composers to be inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame during his lifetime. Carter was recognized by the Pulitzer Prize Committee for the first time in 1960 for his groundbreaking String Quartet No. 2. Igor Stravinsky hailed Carter's Double Concerto for harpsichord, piano, and two chamber orchestras (1961) and Piano Concerto (1967), as "masterpieces."

Carter's prolific career spanned over 75 years, with more than 150 pieces, ranging from chamber music to orchestra to opera, often marked with a sense of wit and humor. His astonishing late-career creative burst resulted in a number of brief solo and chamber works, as well as major essays such as Asko Concerto (2000) for Holland's ASKO Ensemble. Some chamber works include What Are Years (2009), Nine by Five (2009), and Two Thoughts About the Piano (2005-06), widely toured by Pierre-Laurent Aimard. Carter showed his mastery in larger forms as well, with major contributions such as What Next? (1997-98), Boston Concerto (2002), Three Illusions for Orchestra (2004), called by the Boston Globe "surprising, inevitable, and vividly orchestrated," Flute Concerto (2008), a piano concerto, Interventions (2007), which premiered on Carter's 100th birthday concert at Carnegie Hall with James Levine, Daniel Barenboim, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra (December 11, 2008), and the song cycle A Sunbeam's Architecture (2011).

More information available at americansymphony.org.