Jaap van Zweden News

Bravo! Vail and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra today jointly announced a three-year extension of the Orchestra's annual summer residency from 2016 to 2018. The current contract expires in 2015. The Dallas Symphony had initially performed at Bravo! Vail from the summers of 2000-2006, and, after a brief two-year absence, returned in 2009 under the direction of their new music director, Jaap van Zweden.

Bravo! Vail today announced that Colorado Public Radio Classical (CPR Classical) will broadcast six concerts from their 2014 "SummerFest" concert series to listeners across Colorado, including concerts featuring pianist Helene Grimaud and The Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Music Director Yannick Nezet-Seguin on July 12, and pianist Yefim Bronfman and the New York Philharmonic conducted by Music Director Alan Gilbert on July 19.

The Cleveland Orchestra previously announced the 2014 Blossom Music Festival season. The Festival comprises 18 concerts - including 15 by The Cleveland Orchestra, two Blossom Festival Band concerts, and one concert by the Blossom Festival Orchestra - at Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Valley National Park from today, July 3 - August 31.

The New York Philharmonic will present its 11th season of Summertime Classics, July 2-6, 2014, featuring five themed concerts with Bramwell Tovey, who has been the host and conductor of the series since its founding in 2004. On the first program, July 2-3, 2014, titled 'Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, and Friends,' the New York Philharmonic will perform Shostakovich's Festive Overture; Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 1, with pianist Joyce Yang as soloist; Musorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain; Rachmaninoff's arrangement of his own Vocalise; and Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker, and Marche slave. The second program, July 4-6, 2014, titled 'Star-Spangled Celebration,' will feature the New York Philharmonic and United States Marine Drum & Bugle Corps - 'The Commandant's Own,' which is celebrating its 80th-anniversary year - in a program that includes Copland's Clarinet Concerto, with Associate Principal Clarinet Mark Nuccio as soloist, and Fanfare for the Common Man; Gershwin's 'Strike Up the Band' from Strike Up the Band; Sousa marches; and more. In these performances Major Brian Dix, director and commanding officer of 'The Commandant's Own,' will share conducting duties with Bramwell Tovey.

British pianist Stephen Hough makes his much-anticipated Bravo! Vail debut with Maestro Jaap van Zweden and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra on Sunday, June 29 at Vail's Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater. For his debut, Hough has selected Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major-a work of deep complexity and epic beauty that is an established favorite among music lovers the world over. Also featured on this varied concert program are Faure's Suite from the Incidental Music to Maeterlinck's Pelleas et Melisande, and Ravel's Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloe. The evening closes with Ravel's most recognizable work, Bolero. Tickets for this concert titled 'Ravel's Bolero' are on sale now. Lawn tickets are $28 or $5 for children ages 12 and under. Visit bravovail.org or call the box office at 877.812.5700 for more information.

Violinist Simone Lamsma makes her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), today, June 5-8, with guest conductor Jaap van Zweden leading Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto. Also featured on the program is Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, Op. 47. Lamsma's appearance is endowed in part by the Nuveen Investments Emerging Artist Fund, which is committed to nurturing the next generation of great classical music artists.

Violinist Simone Lamsma makes her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), on June 5-8, with guest conductor Jaap van Zweden leading Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto. Also featured on the program is Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, Op. 47. Lamsma's appearance is endowed in part by the Nuveen Investments Emerging Artist Fund, which is committed to nurturing the next generation of great classical music artists.

The Richmond Symphony closes their 2013-14 season with The Damnation of Faust, Berlioz's vivid and bold Masterpiece which asks the question, "Are we willing to sell our souls to get what we believe we desire?"

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) presents its annual spring festival from May 19 to June 8, 2014, which this year is entitled Truth to Power. Inspired by the phrase "speaking truth to power"-part of a 1955 Quaker treatise that outlined alternatives to violence and served as a cornerstone for the pacifist movement-the Truth to Power Festival highlights the works of Dmitri Shostakovich, Benjamin Britten and Sergei Prokofiev, three composers who believed in music's ability to connect people and thus harness the power of shared experience.

The Richmond Symphony closes their 2013-14 season with The Damnation of Faust, Berlioz's vivid and bold Masterpiece which asks the question, “Are we willing to sell our souls to get what we believe we desire?”

The New York Philharmonic will return to Bravo! Vail in Colorado for the Orchestra's 12th- annual summer residency there, performing six concerts July 18-25, 2014. Music Director Alan Gilbert will conduct three programs, July 18-20, featuring works by composers for whom he has advocated during his tenure, ranging from Nielsen to The Marie-Jose?e Kravis Composer-in- Residence Christopher Rouse. The other Philharmonic concerts will be conducted by Bramwell Tovey (July 23 and 25) and Ted Sperling (July 24), and will feature works by Copland, Gershwin, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Loesser, among others.

The New York Philharmonic will present its 11th season of Summertime Classics, July 2-6, 2014, featuring five themed concerts with Bramwell Tovey, who has been the host and conductor of the series since its founding in 2004. On the first program, July 2-3, 2014, titled "Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, and Friends," the New York Philharmonic will perform Shostakovich's Festive Overture; Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 1, with pianist Joyce Yang as soloist; Musorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain; Rachmaninoff's arrangement of his own Vocalise; and Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker, and Marche slave. The second program, July 4-6, 2014, titled "Star-Spangled Celebration," will feature the New York Philharmonic and United States Marine Drum & Bugle Corps - "The Commandant's Own," which is celebrating its 80th-anniversary year - in a program that includes Copland's Clarinet Concerto, with Associate Principal Clarinet Mark Nuccio as soloist, and Fanfare for the Common Man; Gershwin's "Strike Up the Band" from Strike Up the Band; Sousa marches; and more. In these performances Major Brian Dix, director and commanding officer of "The Commandant's Own," will share conducting duties with Bramwell Tovey.

Acclaimed as an artist who possesses 'compelling virtuosity and sensitivity' (Los Angeles Times), pianist Joyce Yang captivates audiences around the globe with a full schedule of concerto and recital performances. Just 27 years old, Yang first came to international attention in 2005, when she became the Silver Medalist of the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. As the youngest contestant that year, she swept two additional awards as an all-around winner. More recently, she was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2010, one of the most prestigious prizes in classical music. This performance marks Yang's Seattle debut.

The Cleveland Orchestra has announced the 2014 Blossom Music Festival season. The Festival comprises 18 concerts - including 15 by The Cleveland Orchestra, two Blossom Festival Band concerts, and one concert by the Blossom Festival Orchestra - at Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Valley National Park from July 3 - August 31.

Bravo! Vail has announced its 27th Season, taking place from June 27th to August 2nd, 2014. Internationally acclaimed soloists will join the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic. World-renowned chamber musicians join artistic director Anne-Marie McDermott for the Chamber Music Series and Silver Oak & Twomey Series.

Acclaimed as an artist who possesses "compelling virtuosity and sensitivity" (Los Angeles Times), pianist Joyce Yang captivates audiences around the globe with a full schedule of concerto and recital performances. Just 27 years old, Yang first came to international attention in 2005, when she became the Silver Medalist of the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. As the youngest contestant that year, she swept two additional awards as an all-around winner. More recently, she was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2010, one of the most prestigious prizes in classical music. This performance marks Yang's Seattle debut.

Tonight, November 21 through the 24th, 2013, 19-year-old pianist/composer Conrad Tao will premiere his new composition The World Is Very Different Now, performed by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jaap van Zweden. The piece is part of a concert commemorating the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22nd, 1963, and The World Is Very Different Now was commissioned especially for the event by the DSO with support by the National Endowment for the Arts and TACA.

Guest conductor Charles Dutoit leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) in Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, the English composer's impassioned denunciation of war on Thursday, November 14; Friday, November 15; and Saturday, November 16, all at 8 p.m.

Good things come in fours as Maestro Thierry Fischer returns to the Abravanel Hall stage in November with Guest Violinist Nicola Benedetti and the Utah Symphony presenting Vivaldi's legendary tour de force The Four Seasons.

Distinguished international conductor and acclaimed Mozart interpreter Hans Graf, recently named Music Director Laureate of the Houston Symphony after serving as its music director for 12 years, makes his Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra debut conducting the highly anticipated Los Angeles debut of Italian piano sensation Alessio Bax, whose artistry "quivers with an almost hypnotic intensity" (Gramophone), in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491 on Saturday, November 16, 8 pm, at the Alex Theatre in Glendale and Sunday, November 17, 7 pm, at UCLA's Royce Hall. Also featured is Beethoven's vivid Symphony No. 6 in F major, "Pastoral," considered among Beethoven's most exquisitely beautiful and popular works. The program begins with Henri Dutilleux' Mystere de l'instant for strings, cimbalom (a hammered dulcimer) and percussion, which premiered in 1989.