Guest Conductor Tito Munoz to Lead the CSO and Guest Violinist Elina Vahala in RACHMANINOFF & SIBELIUS, 11/2 & 3

Violinist Elina Vähälä channels the fire and poetic atmosphere of the mighty concerto penned by her fellow Finnish native, Jean Sibelius. Guest conductor Tito Muñoz and the Columbus Symphony will also perform the exotic oriental melodies of Cowell's Ancient Desert Drone and the sumptuous Romanticism of Rachmaninoff's melodious Symphony No. 2.

The Columbus Symphony presents Rachmaninoff & Sibelius at the Ohio Theatre (39 E. State St.) on Friday and Saturday, November 2 and 3, at 8pm daily. Tickets are $25-$65 and can be purchased at the CAPA Ticket Center (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 PNC Arts Alive All Access tickets while available. For more information, visit www.GoFor5.com.

WOSU's Christopher Purdy will hold a free, pre-concert lecture about the program for ticket holders one hour prior to each performance.

The 2012-13 Masterworks Series performance is made possible through the generous support of Ann and Noel Melvin.

About conductor Tito Muñoz
Lauded by the Cincinnati Enquirer for his "natural facility and convincing musicianship on the podium," Muñoz is increasingly recognized as one of the most gifted conductors of his generation. He is Music Director of the Opéra National de Lorraine and the Orchestre symphonique et lyrique de Nancy. He previously served a three-year tenure as Assistant Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra, and as League of American Orchestras Conducting Fellow. Prior to that, he served as Assistant Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra.

About violinist Elina Vähälä
Vähälä is one of the most sought-after instrumentalists in the international music scene. She is the winner of the 1999 Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York, and has also won prizes in the Lipinsky-Wieniawski competition in Lublin, Poland, at the age of 15, and the 2000 Joseph Joachim Violin Competition in Hanover, Germany. Vähälä has appearaned with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Tugan Sokhiev, Oregon Symphony and Carlos Kalmar, Hamburger Camerata and Ralf Gothóni, and performed at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She launched Violin Academy, a master class based educational project for selected young Finnish violinists, and is a professor for violin at the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, Germany. She has also debuted the string quartet QUADRION.

About composer Henry Cowell (1897–1965)
Cowell was an American composer, music theorist, pianist, teacher, publisher, and impresario.One of his most famous early compositional innovations was the tone cluster (thick chords made up of major and minor seconds) which he played all over the piano with his forearms and fists. Cowell invented a variety of other groundbreaking techniques for stroking, strumming, and plucking inside the piano, directly on the strings, which he dubbed the string piano. Ancient Desert Drone features mysterious oriental melodies, based usually on whole tone patterns and odd intervals. The monotonous droning bass and primitive rhythms accompanying the melodies intensify the Eastern charm.

About composer Jean Sibelius (1865–1957)
Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period. His music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. The core of Sibelius's oeuvre is his set of seven symphonies. The Violin Concerto in D minor is the only concerto that Sibelius wrote. The initial version of the concerto premiered on February 8, 1904, with Sibelius conducting, and was a disaster. He made substantial revisions and premiered the new version on October 19, 1905.

About composer Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff (1873–1943)
Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor, and is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music. Symphony No. 2 in E minor was written in 1906–07, and the premiere was conducted by Rachmaninoff himself in St. Petersburg on February 8, 1908. At the time it was composed, Rachmaninoff had had two successful seasons as conductor of the Imperial Opera at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. He considered himself first and foremost a composer and felt that the performance schedule was detracting from his time to compose.

www.columbussymphony.com

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