June, 2006 - Nr. 6
CPO’s New Music Director Roberto Minczuk And Young, Blazing Talent Pekka Kuusisto Visit The TSO
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Roberto Minczuk, conductor
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Pekka Kuusisto, violin
October 18 at 8 pm
October 19 at 2 pm
Roy Thomson Hall
Toronto, Ontario-- Roberto Minczuk, newly installed as Music Director of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, leads off this season’s series of guest conducting engagements by major Canadian maestros. He teams up with the immensely gifted Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto – who scored such an overwhelming success with the TSO in the Sibelius Concerto two seasons ago – for the melodious, ever-popular concerto by Tchaikovsky. Schumann’s colourful postcard from Germany’s Rhine valley is featured the "Rhenish" Symphony, and Dragon Realms by Calgary composer Vincent Ho, who will attend these concerts.
The young Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto is adorable, endearing, and incredibly expressive onstage. He embarked on his international career in 1995 at the age of nineteen, when he became the first Finn to win the Sibelius violin competition. He has since become acclaimed for his flair for tone and technique, his natural expressiveness, infectious enthusiasm, and his imaginative interpretations. The past few seasons have seen Pekka in performances with some of the world’s greatest orchestras and eminent conductors. Highlights last season included a period of guest directing on tour with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and a tour of Japan with the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and Susanna Mälkki. Recent debuts include the Malaga Symphony Orchestra, London Chamber Orchestra, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, and Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra; he returns to the Malaysian Philharmonic and Ulster orchestras. Pekka also recently performed with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra under Thomas Dausgaard, and with the Warsaw Philharmonic under Leif Segerstam. Pekka is co-Artistic Director of the Lake Tuusula Chamber Music Festival in Finland together with his brother Jaakko, and, as well as classical music, is a devotee of other musical styles including folk, jazz and electronic music.
Pekka Kuusisto plays a Giovanni Baptista Guadagnini violin of 1752 kindly loaned by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
Vincent Chee -Yung Ho
is a 31-year old Canadian composer who resides in both Canada and the US. His works are mainly orchestral, chamber and piano works that have been successfully performed in both North America and abroad.Mr. Ho began composing at the age of fourteen. After receiving his ARCT in Piano Performance from the Royal Conservatory of Music in 1993, he studied composition and earned a Bachelor of Music from the University of Calgary. He then completed his Master of Music at the University of Toronto in 1998, where he studied with Walter Buczynski and Christos Hatzis. He recently earned his DMA from the University of Southern California while under the supervision of Stephen Hartke. Vincent Ho has studied abroad on scholarship, such as the Schola Cantorum Summer Composition Program in Paris, and participated in the Long-Term Residency Program at the Banff Centre for the Arts. In 2005, he was one of five emerging composers selected to attend The National Arts Centre’s Young Composers’ Program, supervised by Alexina Louie, Joseph Schwantner, and Gary Kulesha. His works have been performed by many of Canada’s top musical organizations and abroad, in China, France, and Italy. Please visit
www.vinceho.com for more information.Part of the AIR FRANCE October Concerts Series.
Tickets:
Call the Roy Thomson Hall box office at 416 593 4828.
Oct 18: $120, $91.50, $85, $75, $65.50, $50, $41.50, $35.
Oct 19: $71, $64, $59, $55, $51, $41, $33, $27.50.
Mon-Fri, 9-8. Sat, 12-5. Sun, 3 hrs. prior to concert start. VISA/MC/AMEX.
Toronto Symphony Orchestra
#550 – 212 King Street West, Toronto, ON, M5H 1K5
Marketing fax: 416 593 8660 www.tso.ca
