Image Credit: Steve Sherman

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. — The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College presents the second concert of the 2012–13 season of the popular American Symphony Orchestra (ASO) series on Friday, February 22 and Saturday, February 23, at 8 p.m. The concert will be conducted by Leon Botstein, music director, with a preconcert talk at 7 p.m. The evening performances include the original 1887 version of Symphony No. 8 by Anton Bruckner and the world premiere of TRIPLE PLAY, Concerto for Clarinet, by Harold Farberman, founder and artistic director of The Conductors Institute at Bard College. The clarinet concerto features Renata Rakova ’12, 2011 winner of The Bard College Conservatory of Music Concerto Competition. Individual tickets are $25, $30, $35, and $40. Call 845-758-7900 or visit the Fisher Center website at fishercenter.bard.edu to purchase tickets or for further information. 

Harold Farberman’s TRIPLE PLAY, Concerto for Clarinet, is a composition of symphonic, jazz, and klezmer styles. Farberman says, “The clarinet is an instrument with extraordinary character. Mozart gave the clarinet a symphonic voice through his friend Anton Stadler, the virtuoso for whom he wrote a variety of works. ... In the 20th century Benny Goodman made the clarinet a popular solo jazz instrument. And for many long years, and in countless shtetls throughout Eastern Europe, the timbre of the clarinet, wrapped in soul, became the instantly identifiable sound of Jewish klezmer music. The three movements of TRIPLE PLAY pay homage to three very different performing styles.”

The program also features Romantic composer Anton Bruckner’s original 1887 version of his Symphony No. 8, which is rarely performed or recorded. Christopher Gibbs, James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Music, describes the piece as having an “opening movement that ends with a loud and thrilling coda … and a striking melody that unfolds over a hushed tremolo string passage. The precedent is Beethoven’s Ninth, the symphony that most influenced Bruckner.”

Concert Three of the series, on Friday, April 19, and Saturday, April 20, features an all–Wagner program: Lohengrin: Preludes to Acts I and III; Tristan und Isolde: Prelude and Liebestod; and Die Walküre: Act I, with Julie Makerov, soprano; Richard Cox, tenor; and Peter Volpe, bass. 

About the Performers: 

Leon Botstein is music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra and conductor laureate of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. He is founder and artistic codirector of the Bard Music Festival, which celebrates its 24th season this year at Bard College, the institution he has served as president since 1975. Botstein has guest conducted major orchestras throughout the world. Among his recordings are operas by Strauss, Dukas, and Chausson, as well as works by Shostakovich, Dohnányi, Liszt, Bruckner, Bartók, Hartmann, Reger, Glière, Szymanowski, Brahms, Copland, Sessions, Perle, and Rands. He is the editor of The Musical Quarterly and the author of many articles and books. For his contributions to music he has received the Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Centennial Medal of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art. He is a recipient of the Carnegie Foundation’s Academic Leadership Award and a member of the American Philosophical Society.

Founded in 1962 by legendary conductor Leopold Stokowski, the American Symphony Orchestra continues its mission to demystify orchestral music and make it accessible and affordable to everyone. Under music director Leon Botstein, the ASO has pioneered what the Wall Street Journal called “a new concept in orchestras,” presenting concerts in the Vanguard Series at Carnegie Hall curated around various themes from the visual arts, literature, politics, and history, and unearthing rarely performed masterworks for well-deserved revival. The ASO is the resident orchestra of The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, where it appears in a winter subscription series as well as in Bard’s annual SummerScape and Bard Music Festival.

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