Minnesota Orchestra Announces 2010-11 Classical Season Plans

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Music Director Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra today unveiled plans for their eighth season together, highlights of which include a Mid-Winter Mozart Festival spotlighting an array of the composer’s symphonies, concertos, choral works and chamber music, culminating in a semi-staged production of the beloved opera The Magic Flute; performance cycles of the Brahms and Rachmaninoff symphonies; visits by acclaimed soloists including Grammy Award-winning cellist Truls Mørk, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and violinists Viktoria Mullova and Lisa Batiashvili, as well as Minnesota pianists Lydia Artymiw and Andrew Staupe ; the continuation of a Beethoven piano concertos recording project with soloist Yevgeny Sudbin; and a new initiative to record Sibelius’ Second and Fifth Symphonies. The season will also feature solo turns by five Orchestra musicians; appearances by nine accomplished guest conductors, including Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Music Director Marin Alsop and the Orchestra’s Conductor Laure ate Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, both of whom will conduct Brahms symphonies; and world premieres of concertos by Einojuhani Rautavaara and James MacMillan.

Mr. Vänskä and the Orchestra will launch the ensemble’s 108th season on Thursday, September 30, 2010, with cellist Truls Mørk premiering Rautavaara’s Second Cello Concerto, Towards the Horizon, which was commissioned by the Orchestra. Mr. Vänskä will lead 13 subscription programs, concluding with June 2010 performances of Orff’s monumental Carmina burana. For the first time, he will conduct the Orchestra’s annual Messiah concerts in December 2010.

After the season’s end, Mr. Vänskä, the Orchestra and 29-year-old Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin will record Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto for the Swedish-based label BIS , the third step in their five-year initiative to record all five Beethoven piano concertos. At the same set of sessions, the Orchestra will record Sibelius’ Second and Fifth Symphonies, also for BIS.

On February 28, 2011, the Orchestra will perform a concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall. The program for the New York concert will be announced later this winter.

Continuing a partnership with Minnesota Public Radio that began in the late 1960s, the Orchestra’s Friday evening classical concerts will be broadcast live regionally on MPR stations; they can also be heard live online via streaming audio at minnesotapublicradio.org. In addition, the Orchestra’s concerts are featured in American Public Media’s national programs, Performance Today and SymphonyCast.

The Orchestra will offer season preview concerts for audiences interested in sampling 2010-11 repertoire on Thursday, April 8, 2010, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, April 11, 2010, at 2 p.m. Tickets can be reserved beginning February 12 by calling Minnesota Orchestra Ticket Services at (612) 371-5656. Admission to these concerts is $25 (free for renewed 2010-11 subscribers).

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