September 5, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Sevan Melikyan, Dir. of P.R., 817.738.6536
CLIBURN AT THE BASS OPENS NEW SEASON WITH CLIBURN LAUREATE RUDOLF
BUCHBINDER PERFORMING WITH THE FORT WORTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
"Stylistic integrity, comprehensive technique and a genuine
Beethovenian flair..." - Los Angeles Times
FORT WORTH, TEXAS, September 5, 2008--World-renowned pianist
Rudolf Buchbinder will open the 2008-2009 Cliburn Concerts season
on Thursday, September 25 at 7:30 p.m. in Bass Performance Hall
(corner of 4th and Calhoun Streets). Mr. Buchbinder, who has been
called "the Viennese oracle on the core literature of Haydn,
Beethoven, and Brahms" by the Philadelphia Inquirer, will conduct
and perform with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in a concert
titled "A Night in Old Vienna."
The program includes three piano concertos: Haydn's Piano
Concerto in D major, Hob. XVIII:11; Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20
in D minor, K. 466; and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C
minor, Op. 37.
A 1966 Cliburn laureate, Mr. Buchbinder will conduct the
orchestra from the piano as he plays. His appearance with the Fort
Worth Symphony is part of an ongoing Cliburn program showcasing
winners who have also developed significant conducting careers.
With more than 100 recordings to his credit, the Austrian
musician has established himself as one of the most important
pianists on the international scene. He is a regular guest of the
world's great orchestras, and recently celebrated both his 60th
birthday and the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth with
awe-inspiring performances of twelve Mozart concertos, as soloist
and conductor, with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna
Festival.
Prior to Mr. Buchbinder's Cliburn Concerts performance, there
will be a Cliburn Conversations presentation hosted by Dr. Carol
Reynolds at 6:30 p.m. in the Green Room of Bass Performance Hall.
Cliburn Conversations is free to all ticket holders and is designed
to provide insightful information about the evening's program.
TICKETS AND INFORMATION: Single tickets range from $15 to
$90.
Tickets are available for purchase online at www.centralticketoffice.com
or by calling 817.335.9000. More information is available at www.cliburn.org.
Cliburn at the Bass is part of the Cliburn Concerts series,
which is widely regarded as the foremost classical performance
series in the region. It features the world's leading recitalists,
ensembles, and rising stars. Cliburn Concerts is presented in three
venues: Bass Performance Hall, the Kimbell Art Museum, and the
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
ExxonMobil is the Principal Corporate Sponsor of the Van Cliburn
Foundation. American Airlines, Bank of America, City of Fort Worth,
Eastman Kodak Company, JPMorgan Chase, Star-Telegram, Steinway
& Sons, and XTO Energy Inc. are Official Corporate Sponsors,
and Clear Channel Communications and RadioShack Corporation are the
Cliburn's Corporate Sponsors. Official Sponsors are the Arts
Council of Fort Worth & Tarrant County, The Burnett Foundation,
the Beaumont Foundation of America, and the Sid W. Richardson
Foundation. Star- Telegram is the principal media partner and WRR
101.1 FM is the official radio station of Cliburn Concerts.
RUDOLF BUCHBINDER
Firmly established as one of the most important artists on the
international scene, Austrian pianist and conductor Rudolf
Buchbinder is a regular guest of such renowned orchestras as the
Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic,
Orchestre de Paris, London Philharmonic, National Symphony, and the
Philadelphia Orchestra. He has collaborated with the world's most
distinguished conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Christoph von
Dohnányi, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Carlo Maria Giulini, Nikolaus
Harnoncourt, Lorin Maazel, Zdenek Macal, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta,
Jukka- Pekka Saraste, and Wolfgang Sawallisch. He is a regular
guest at the Salzburger Festspiele and at other major festivals
around the world.
Mr. Buchbinder has more than 100 recordings to his credit,
covering an enormous range of repertoire, including the complete
cycle of Beethoven sonatas; the complete Beethoven concertos; the
complete Mozart piano concertos; all of Haydn's works for piano;
both Brahms concertos; and all of the rarely performed Diabelli
Variations collection, written by fifty Austrian composers. His
eighteen-disc set of Haydn's works earned him the Grand Prix du
Disque. Mr. Buchbinder's latest CDs, which are live recordings,
feature him playing the Brahms piano concertos with the Royal
Concertgebouw Orchestra under Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and as soloist
and conductor in all five Beethoven piano concertos with the Vienna
Symphony Orchestra. In celebration of his sixtieth birthday in
2006, Mr. Buchbinder performed twelve Mozart piano concertos with
the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna Festwochen. EuroArts recently
released a DVD of these performances.
Rudolf Buchbinder is the founding artistic director of the
Grafenegg Music Festival, a major international music festival near
Vienna, launched in August 2007. During the inaugural festival, he
performed Beethoven's Concerto No. 5 with the London Symphony
Orchestra and conductor Valery Gergiev. Other recent highlights
include performances at the Jubilee Concert for the fiftieth
anniversary of the Großer Musikvereinssaal in Vienna (where Mr.
Buchbinder made his debut at age eleven in 1958); with the
Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala at Teatro alla Scala; of
Beethoven sonata cycles in Warsaw, Berkeley, and at the Vienna
Musikverein; with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin;
and of all five Beethoven piano concertos over three days, with the
Dresden Philharmonic.
This past summer, Mr. Buchbinder performed with the
Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under Christoph
Eschenbach, and with the NDR (North German Radio) Symphony
Orchestra under Peter Ruzicka. He will visit Munich several times
in the coming season, performing the complete cycle of Beethoven
sonatas at the Prinzregententheater. In October and November, he
will tour the United States with the Dresden Staatskapelle under
Fabio Luisi, highlighted by concerts at Avery Fisher Hall in New
York and Symphony Hall in Boston. In December, he will perform with
the Los Angeles Philharmonic, led by Gustavo Dudamel. In February
2009, Mr. Buchbinder returns to the United States to perform
Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Pittsburgh Symphony
Orchestra, led by Manfred Honeck.
Mr. Buchbinder attaches considerable importance to the
meticulous study of musical sources. He owns eighteen complete
editions of Beethoven's sonatas and has an extensive collection of
autograph scores, first editions, and original documents. He was
admitted to the Vienna Musik Hochschule at age five, and remains
the youngest student in the school's history. He is also a laureate
of the Second Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
FORT WORTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
For more than seventy-five years, the Fort Worth Symphony
Orchestra has served the Fort Worth community. Under the artistic
leadership of music director Miguel Harth-Bedoya , and as the
principal resident company of the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass
Performance Hall, the Orchestra presents a series of symphonic,
pops, and special concerts, and has a subscriber base of 8,500. It
also serves as the orchestra for Texas Ballet Theater, Fort Worth
Opera, and the Southwestern Seminary Oratorio Chorus. The Orchestra
has participated in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition
since its inception.
The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra's annual five-week summer
music festival, Concerts in the Garden, features an array of
performances and artists, and has grown into one of the largest and
most successful summer outdoor festivals of its kind in Texas.
Adventures in Music, the Orchestra's extensive and diverse
educational outreach program, serves more than 60,000 children,
youth, and adults each season through free or low-cost performances
at Bass Performance Hall, and in a variety of venues throughout the
community. The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra is the only orchestra
in Texas to participate in Carnegie Hall's award- winning Weill
Music Institute Communities LinkUP! program.
For more information, please visit www.fwsymphony.org.
PROGRAM
HAYDN
Piano Concerto in D major, Hob. XVIII:11
MOZART
Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466
BEETHOVEN
Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37
Contact: Sevan Melikyan Dir. of P.R.
email: sevan@cliburn.org
phone: 817.738.6536
web:
