Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Presents TCHAIKOVSKY: MAD BUT FOR MUSIC Tonight

Music Director Marin Alsop leads her final Off the Cuff concert of the 2014-2015 season in collaboration with playwright in residence and director Didi Balle for a symphonic play exploring the life of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as he wrote his Fifth Symphony. The semi-staged production, taking place tonight, April 10, at 8:15 p.m. at The Music Center at Strathmore and Saturday, April 11, at 7 p.m. at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, will take audiences into the mind of Tchaikovsky as he expresses his thoughts and feelings on fate, death, sexuality, money, madness and love.

"Audiences will see the composer come to life," said Didi Balle. "We will see and hear this symphony through Tchaikovsky's lens at a time when he acknowledged that he must 'surrender and submit to fate' in order to reconcile himself with his own life, so when the time comes, he will die a peaceful death."

Maestra Alsop also leads the BSO for a classical program of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 on Thursday, April 9, at 8 p.m. at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall and Sunday, April 12, at 3 p.m. at The Music Center at Strathmore. These concerts also include Shostakovich's Festive Overture and feature the debut of guest flute soloist Adam Walker in the East Coast premiere of Kevin Puts' Flute Concerto.

Tchaikovsky's most beloved Symphony No. 5 delivers an achingly beautiful, graceful movement leading into a melancholic waltz. The menacing theme of Fate haunts throughout the piece before it is triumphantly overcome in the finale. Composed in the stroke of inspiration by Shostakovich, Festive Overture reflects the energetic imagination of the composer and the exuberance of the 37th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution for which it was written.

Flutist Adam Walker and composer Kevin Puts will each make their BSO debut in a performance of Puts' Flute Concerto. The concerto opens with a lyrically themed movement built on a three-note motif that gives way to a Mozart-inspired environment before culminating in a spirited close.

COMPLETE PROGRAM DETAILS

Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony

Thursday, April 9, 2015 at 8 p.m. - Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall

Sunday, April 12, 2015 at 3 p.m. - The Music Center at Strathmore

Marin Alsop, conductor

Adam Walker, flute

Shostakovich: Festive Overture

Kevin Puts: Flute Concerto (East Coast Premiere)

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5

Off the Cuff

Tchaikovsky: Mad But for Music

Friday, April 10, 2015 at 8:15 p.m. - The Music Center at Strathmore

Saturday, April 11, 2015 at 7 p.m. - Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall

Marin Alsop, conductor

Didi Balle, writer and director

Peter Bradbury, actor

Steve Tague, actor

Katie DeBuys, actor

Laureen Smith, actor

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5

Marin Alsop, conductor

Marin Alsop is an inspiring and powerful voice in the international music scene, a music director of vision and distinction who passionately believes that "music has the power to change lives." She is recognized across the world for her innovative approach to programming and for her deep commitment to education and to the development of audiences of all ages.

Marin Alsop made history with her appointment as the 12th music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO). With her inaugural concerts in September 2007, she became the first woman to head a major American orchestra. Her success as the BSO's music director has garnered national and international attention for her innovative programming and artistry. Her success was recognized when, in 2013, her tenure was extended to the 2020-2021 season.

Alsop took up the post of principal conductor of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra in 2012, and became music director in July 2013. There, she steers the orchestra in its artistic and creative programming, recording ventures and its education and outreach activities. She also holds the title of conductor emeritus at the Bournemouth Symphony in the United Kingdom, where she served as the principal conductor from 2002-2008.

In the summer of 2013, Maestra Alsop served her 22nd season as music director of the acclaimed Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California. In September 2013, she made history as the first female conductor of the BBC's Last Night of the Proms in London. When Musical America named Maestra Alsop the 2009 Conductor of the Year, they commented, "[Marin Alsop] connects to the public as few conductors today can."

Adam Walker, flute

Described by Classic FM radio as "one of the top 5 international flautists," in 2009, at the age of 21, Adam Walker was appointed principal flute of the London Symphony Orchestra and received the Outstanding Young Artist Award at MIDEM Classique in Cannes.

An ambassador for the flute with a ferocious appetite for repertoire, Adam's interests range from the less well-known French Baroque through to newly commissioned works. As a soloist Walker has performed with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra at the Konzerthaus, the Solistes Européens, Luxembourg, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields at the Barbican, Hallé Orchestra at Bridgewater Hall and with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony, Northern Sinfonia and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras. Concert appearances include LSO St. Luke's (broadcast by BBC Radio 3), City of London Festival,Varese (Italy) and Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Didi Balle, director and playwright in residence

In the spring of 2013, Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) announced the appointment of Didi Balle as the organization's first-ever playwright in residence. Tchaikovsky: Mad But for Music (April 2015) marks the fifth successful Symphonic Play™ collaboration and world premiere with Alsop and the BSO. Other commissioned works with Alsop include: CSI: Mozart, A Composer Fit for a King: Wagner & Ludwig II, Analyze This: Mahler & Freud and CSI: Beethoven. Symphonic Plays commissioned and premiered by The Philadelphia Orchestra include Shostakovich: Notes For Stalin and The Secret Life of Isaac Newton.
Didi Balle's work as a writer and director includes commissions, broadcasts, and stage productions of her work from Symphonic Plays, radio musicals, musical theater, song cycles, and opera. She's created a new genre called Symphonic Plays borne out of a friendship and dynamic collaboration with Marin Alsop.

Founding director of Symphonic Stage Shows, Balle received her MFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, where she was awarded the Oscar Hammerstein Scholarship as a playwright-lyricist. Didi Balle is also a published writer and journalist and worked as an editor for The New York Times for 13 years.

Peter Bradbury, actor

Peter's credits include the Broadway productions of The Elephant Man (West End production beginning in May), Casa Valentina, Cyrano De Bergerac, Picnic, That Championship Season, A Man for All Seasons, The Norman Conquests, Heda Gabler, Present Laughter, Mrs. Warren's Profession, The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, and The Herbal Bed as well as the acclaimed Roundabout Theater Co.'s production of The Overwhelming (directed by Max Stafford-Clark).

Other off Broadway productions include Patrick Barlow's adaptation of A Christmas Carol, The City Club and Tricks the Devil Taught Me, Neil LaBute's Break of Noon at MCC, Bulrusher (Pulitzer finalist), Milk, Back From the Front, Snakebit, Passion Play, Surviving Grace, and A Late Supper. Television credits include Sally Hemings (CBS miniseries) and feature roles on Homeland, House of Cards, Boardwalk Empire, White Collar, Unforgettable, Law and Order, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Rubicon, Rescue Me, Another World, One Life to Live, The Guiding Light, As the World Turns among others, as well as a co-starring role in the upcoming Darwin, a new web series.

Steve Tague, actor

Steve has performed in theaters from Seattle to Philadelphia but it was here in Baltimore where he got his first professional job at Center Stage many years ago. He has performed the title role in Titus Andronicus for Bart Sher at the Intiman Theater and Hamlet for Charlie Fee at The Great Lakes Theater Festival as well as Tartuffe, King Lear, Richard the Third and Macbeth, among many others. He was a member of the acting company at The Resident Ensemble Players in Delaware for five years where he played in Noises Off, Little Foxes and the world premiere of two Theresa Rebeck plays, Fever and O Beautiful. At the REP he has directed Angels in America, Mousetrap, Anything to Declare and next fall will be directing the world premiere of The Patsy, a new adaptation of Feydeau's Le Dindon by Greg Leaming. His only brush with classical music greatness was sharing the stage with Dawn Upshaw in Gianni Schicchi and HMS Pinafore. He is on the faculty at the University of Delaware.

Katie DeBuys, actor

Katie has previously acted at the Folger Theatre as Princess Katherine and the Boy in Henry V, The Duck in The Conference of the Birds, and Lady Lucy in The Gaming Table. Other D.C.-area theatre credits include Seminar at Round House Theatre; Measure for Measure at Shakespeare Theatre Company; and the world premiere production of Aaron Posner's Stupid f-ing Bird, directed by Howard Shalwitz at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, where she also starred in In the Next Room or the vibrator play. Regional credits include Bug (B. Iden Payne Award: Best Actress) and Killer Joe at Capital T Theatre in Austin, Texas, and Twelfth Night and Julius Caesar at the Texas Shakespeare Festival. Ms. DeBuys received a B.S. degree in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Acting from The University of Texas at Austin. She is a native of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and came to reside in Washington, D.C. via Chicago and Austin.

Laureen Smith, actor

Laureen is pleased to again be working with the talented cast and musicians of the BSO, and director Didi Balle on this world premiere. Previously, Laureen appeared with the BSO in CSI: Beethoven.She was seen by Washington audiences as Mrs. K in Rep Stage's The Piano Teacher. Recently returned from Vancouver, British Columbia. Laureen was seen in John Patrick Shanley's Beggars in the House of Plenty (Beaumont Stage), You Can't Take It With You, and Shadowlands (Pacific Theatre), Itsazoo's site-specific Debts, Andromache, (Jericho Arts Centre), as well as in the Canadian feature film, Rain Down, and the Cannes Festival Short invitee, Tell Me. Laureen also premiered D.C. playwright Kerric Harvey's Palace of Weariness at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, reprised at Vancouver's Fringe.Laureen is a member of Directors Lab North and her directing credits include productions both in Canada and the U.S. She has taught at both the University of British Columbia, as well as the George Washington University, where she also received her PhD. Laureen originally hails from the Napa Valley in California.

Tickets start at $50 and are available through the BSO Ticket Office, 410.783.8000 or BSOmusic.org.