The Cleveland Orchestra’s 2010-11 season includes wide-ranging programs and initiatives

The Cleveland Orchestra has announced its 2010-11 season. Under the leadership of Music Director Franz Welser-Möst, the Orchestra continues its local programming diversification with numerous initiatives to attract new audiences and support. Within a full schedule of traditional subscription concerts, the season will feature the new series that were introduced in 2009 including Fridays@7, Musically Speaking, and the Celebrity Series, alongside fully staged opera. Also in the coming season, the Orchestra will inaugurate a two week Baroque Festival in Severance Hall.

Orchestra performances in public schools are an important part of The Cleveland Orchestra’s history. Franz Welser-Möst restored that tradition in the 2009-10 season when he conducted the Orchestra in two high schools in Cleveland and one in Miami . Hundreds of students who had never heard live orchestral music before were able to experience it for the first time. The Orchestra’s traditional Education Concerts at Severance Hall for more than 16,000 students annually will continue, as well as the Cleveland Orchestra Family Concert series.

The innovative variety of concert programs and formats presents audiences in Northeast Ohio with multiple ways to partake of symphonic music. Fridays@7 offers a social experience, Musically Speaking brings new audiences and long-time fans closer to the music, and the Celebrity Series spotlights different genres of music.

Music Director Franz Welser-Möst’s Programming
Franz Welser-Möst opens his ninth season with The Cleveland Orchestra with a program including Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, in two subscription concerts at Severance Hall and at a Cleveland Metropolitan School District high school. Also during the 2010-11 season, Mr. Welser-Möst will conduct John Adams’s Doctor Atomic Symphony; Bach’s Mass in F major (BWV 233); Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta; Bartók’s Second Piano Concerto and Schumann’s Piano Concerto with Pierre-Laurent Aimard; Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 3 and 8; Dvořák’s Te Deum, Mahler’s Symphony No. 4; a fully staged production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni; Rossini’s Stabat Mater; and Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, among 39 performances at Severance Hall, the Miami Residency, and on tour. Mr. Welser-Möst will lead the fifth Roche Commission, an American premiere of Woven Dreams, by Toshio Hosokawa, in January. At the end of the season, Mr. Welser-Möst conducts the world premiere of Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow Jörg Widmann’s Flute Concerto and the Cleveland Orchestra premiere of On a Wire, a concerto for eighth blackbird by Jennifer Higdon that is a co-commission by six orchestras.

Franz Welser-Möst will conduct Bruckner Symphonies Nos. 5 and 7 in the 2010-11 season. He has led the Orchestra in three DVD productions of Bruckner symphonies in three historic venues – the Abbey of St. Florian in Linz, Austria, the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria, and in Cleveland at Severance Hall – which have been telecast in Europe and the United States. In 2011, during the Orchestra’s residency at the Lincoln Center Festival, Mr. Welser-Möst will conduct four Bruckner symphonies. Mr. Welser-Möst is a native of Linz, Austria, where Bruckner spent the formative years of his career.

Jörg Widmann, Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow
Franz Welser-Möst will conduct the world premiere of Jörg Widmann’s Flute Concerto, featuring Cleveland Orchestra Principal Flute Joshua Smith, at Severance Hall in May 2011. German composer Jörg Widmann is the Orchestra’s sixth Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow. In his second season with the Orchestra, Mr. Widmann will continue to participate in rehearsals, masterclasses, and educational activities.

Mr. Widmann is a winner of the Claudio Abbado Composition Award of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Academy, and most recently the winner of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Elise L. Stoeger Prize. The Flute Concerto was commissioned by The Cleveland Orchestra through the Young Composers Fund, established in 1997 by a $1 million gift from Jan R. and Daniel R. Lewis, who reside in Florida. Mr. Lewis is the Chair of the Musical Arts Association of Miami.

Don Giovanni with Simon Keenlyside
The Mozart/Da Ponte cycle of operas fully staged at Severance Hall concludes as Franz Welser-Möst conducts Don Giovanni starring Simon Keenlyside on March 19, 22, 24, and 27, 2011. The production of Don Giovanni will be based on the Zurich Opera production directed by Sven-Eric Bechtolf.

“He can switch from genteel seductiveness to physical threat in a moment, registering all the gradations in his wonderfully vital and well-focused singing,” wrote the Guardian of London reviewing a performance of Simon Keenlyside in Don Giovanni at Covent Garden . In a 2008 production at the Royal Opera House, the Guardian described Mr. Keenlyside as “a tour de force.” Mr. Keenlyside most recently appeared with the Orchestra during a Cleveland Orchestra Musikverein Residency in Vienna in the fall of 2009.

The cast for Don Giovanni includes soprano Eva Mei (Donna Anna) in her Cleveland Orchestra debut, soprano Malin Hartelius (Donna Elvira), baritone Ruben Drole (Leporello), tenor Shawn Mathey (Don Ottavio) in his Cleveland Orchestra debut, soprano Martina Janková (Zerlina), baritone Reinhard Mayr (Masetto) in his Cleveland Orchestra debut, bass-baritone Alfred Muff (Commendatore), and the Cleveland Orchestra Opera Chorus. The opera will be performed in Italian, with English supertitles.

Subscription and Ticket Information
A variety of subscription options will be available for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday concerts. Subscriptions will go on sale March 22. Tickets to individual performances go on sale in August. For more info rmation, call the Ticket Office at (216) 231-1111 or (800) 686-1141 or visit us online at www.clevelandorchestra.com.

The Severance Hall Ticket Office and Subscription Office are located on street level in the Smith Lobby. The entrance and 15-minute Ticket Service parking are along the west side of the building, on East Boulevard . Severance Hall Ticket Office hours are Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. (closed Sundays and holidays except for those days with performances, when the Ticket Office will be open three hours prior to each performance). Severance Hall Subscription Office Hours are Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

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