CSO's Folk Roots Program to Explore European Musical Folk Traditions

Led by guest conductor Rossen Milanov, the Columbus Symphony celebrates the grand orchestral visions and intimate cultural voices of Kodály, Poulenc, and Prokofiev in works which take their Hungarian, French, and Russian folk traditions as musical inspiration. Guest pianists Anna Polonsky and husband Orion Weiss offer an unparalleled keyboard collaboration. WOSU’s Christopher Purdy will hold a free, pre-concert lecture about the program for ticket holders at 7pm each night on the fourth floor of the Ohio Theatre’s Galbreath Pavilion.

The Columbus Symphony presents the Folk Roots program at the Ohio Theatre (39 E. State St.) on Friday and Saturday, January 20 and 21, at 8pm daily. Tickets are $24.75-$68 and can be purchased at the Ohio Theatre Ticket Office (39 E. State St.), all Ticketmaster outlets, and www.ticketmaster.com. To purchase tickets by phone, please call (614) 228-8600 or (800) 745-3000. The Ohio Theatre Ticket Office will also be open two hours prior to each performance. Students between the ages of 13-19 may purchase $5 High Five tickets while available. College students with a valid ID can purchase $13 tickets the week of the performance.

The 2011-12 Masterworks Series is made possible through the generous support of season sponsor Battelle.

About guest conductor Rossen Milanov
A well-known figure in North America, Rossen Milanov made his debut as Music Director of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra in 2010. Other debuts include the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, his Spanish debut with Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias, and his European operatic debut conducting Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Komische Oper in Berlin. He also lead The Philadelphia Orchestra in the opening week of the new Kimmel Center Festival with a choreographed version of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella and de Falla’s The Three Cornered Hat with the Pennsylvania Ballet Company, and made a return to the Royal Swedish Opera for performances of a ballet version of Handel’s Messiah. A committed supporter of youth and music, Milanov is Music Director of both the Symphony in C, one of the leading professional training orchestras in the US, and the New Symphony Orchestra, a privately funded youth orchestra in his native city of Sofia. Rossen Milanov studied conducting at The Juilliard School (where he received the Bruno Walter Memorial Scholarship), the Curtis Institute of Music, Duquesne University, and the Bulgarian National Academy of Music. Former Chief Conductor of the Bulgarian National Radio Orchestra, Milanov is a recipient of the Bulgarian Ministry’s Award for Extraordinary Contribution to Bulgarian Culture. In 2005, he was chosen as Bulgaria’s Musician of the Year. www.RossenMilanov.net

About guest pianist Anna Polonsky
Anna Polonsky is widely in demand as a soloist and chamber musician. She has appeared with the Moscow Virtuosi, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, the Memphis Symphony, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, and many others. Polonsky has collaborated with the Guarneri, Orion, and Shanghai Quartets, and with such musicians as Mitsuko Uchida, David Shifrin, Richard Goode, Ida and Ani Kavafian, Cho-Liang Lin, Arnold Steinhardt, Anton Kuerti, Gary Hoffman, and Fred Sherry. She is regularly invited to perform chamber music at festivals such as Marlboro, Chamber Music Northwest, Seattle, Music@Menlo, Cartagena, Bard, and Caramoor, as well as at Bargemusic in New York City. www.AnnaPolonsky.com

About guest pianist Orion Weiss
Orion Weiss is one of the most sought-after soloists and collaborators in his generation of young American musicians. His deeply felt and exceptionally crafted performances go far beyond his technical mastery and have won him acclaim from audiences, critics, and colleagues in a wide range of repertoire and formats. In 2010, Weiss was named the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year, and performed with numerous orchestras including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Slovenian Philharmonic, as well as made return performances with the Ravinia, Bard, La Jolla, Seattle, Colorado, and Bravo! Vail Valley music festivals and Chamber Music Northwest. Weiss’ impressive list of awards includes the Gilmore Young Artist Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Gina Bachauer Scholarship at the Juilliard School, and the Mieczyslaw Munz Scholarship. A native of Ohio, Weiss attended the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with Paul Schenly. www.OrionWeiss.com

About composer Zoltán Kodály (1882–1967)
Zoltán Kodály was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is best known internationally as the creator of the Kodály Method. His family moved to Galánta (a small town in Slovakia) when he was one and remained there for seven years. So when he was commissioned for a work by the Budapest Philharmonic Society in 1933 to commemorate its 80th anniversary, Kodály turned to his past. Dances of Galánta, a series of dances brilliantly conceived in opulent, glowing orchestral sonorities, was conducted by Kodály at its premiere on December 19, 1934, with the Budapest Philharmonic.

About composer Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (1899–1963)
Poulenc was a French composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music. Composed in three months in the summer of 1932, Concerto in D minor for two pianos was commissioned by and dedicated to the Princess Edmond de Polignac and premiered on September 5, 1932, at the International Society for Contemporary Music in Venice. The work is often described as the last work of Poulenc’s early period.

About composer Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (1891–1953)
Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. In early 1947, he was presented with the idea of revising his Symphony No. 4 Op. 47. The idea appealed to him for multiple reasons. First, the original version had never had much success (especially in the Soviet Union), but Prokofiev believed that the material had great potential. Second, he had just had great success with his Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, and he hoped to reshape No. 4 in its image. Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major had been in the style of socialist realism, so many of the changes in the revision lent the new work a more expansive and heroic feel. The revision altered the original so thoroughly that Prokofiev felt that it was a new work; thus the new opus number, 112.

www.columbussymphony.com

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