In Sunday’s (6/2) Daily Oklahoman, Rick Rogers reports that Constantine Kitsopoulos, music director of the Queens (N.Y.) Symphony Orchestra, has been named artistic director of the OK Mozart Festival in Bartlesville after two seasons there as a guest conductor. “Since co-founder and former artistic director Ransom Wilson’s departure in 2005, the OK Mozart Festival has experienced its share of challenges, with a changing roster of guest conductors, budgetary constraints and shaving two days off its former nine-day schedule. ‘We’re still struggling to climb back up the ladder from the financial collapse of 2008,’ Kitsopoulos said. ‘As the new artistic director, I hope that I’ll be able to present a case for good strong programming that’s consistent from year to year and draw back the funders. The money is out there; it’s a matter of having to be a bit of an evangelist for your art and convince people that this is really worth supporting.’ During the past few years, the festival’s focus has also shifted away from a strong classical music presence into one that has embraced ballet and modern dance, bluegrass and western swing, pop and jazz, world music and Broadway.” For this summer, Rogers reports, Kitsopoulos “is looking forward to working with the Amici New York Orchestra, an ensemble he has conducted for many years in concerts in Bartlesville and New York.”
Posted June 4, 2013
