In Sunday’s (6/5) Times-Picayune (New Orleans), Chris Waddington writes, “Ambition defines the 2011-2012 season of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, the player-owned band led by Carlos Miguel Prieto. It takes ambition to hit the road with 67 musicians and all their instruments—something the LPO plans to do repeatedly. The orchestra will present subscription series in New Orleans, Kenner and Covington. It will offer scores of school programs in multiple parishes, play free concerts in area parks, create special public programs for children, and extend partnerships with Louisiana State University, the Historic New Orleans Collection, the New Orleans Opera Association and other groups across the state. … In the coming season, the LPO will continue its survey of Gustav Mahler’s grandly sprawling symphonies, bookending its season with the first and final essays by the Viennese master. … In the upcoming season, Prieto, who serves as the LPO’s music director, has tapped both violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Jeffrey Biegel to make their second, post-Katrina appearances in New Orleans. Bell will uncase his 1713 Stradivarius as soloist in the Brahms’ ‘Violin Concerto’ in March. Biegel returns in October to present the world premiere of a new concerto by American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwillich—a work that was commissioned by the LPO in a consortium with a dozen other orchestras.”
Posted June 6, 2011
