September 14/15, 2013 – Kuchar/O’Connor

Saturday, September 14, 2013, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, September 15, 2013, 2:00 p.m.

Theodore Kuchar, Music Director and Conductor
Kelley O’Connor, mezzo-soprano

Weber: Abu Hassan Overture
Debussy: Petite Suite
Berlioz: Les nuits d’ete
Haydn: Symphony No. 103 “Drumroll”

Grammy Award winning mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor leads off the RCO’s 2013-14 season with Berlioz’s song cycle Les nuits d’ete. Theodore Kuchar begins his eleventh season as RCO Music Director, leading the Orchestra in Weber’s colorful Abu Hassan Overture, the beautiful Petite Suite by Debussy, and Haydn’s “Drumroll” Symphony, one of the twelve “London” symphonies with which the composer wowed that city in the 1790s.

Kelley O’Connor

Possessing a voice of uncommon allure, musical sophistication far beyond her years, and intuitive and innate dramatic artistry, the Grammy® Award-winning mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor has emerged as one of the most compelling performers of her generation. During the 2012-13 season, the California native’s impressive calendar includes John Adams’s The Gospel According to the Other Mary in a world premiere staging by Peter Sellars performed in America and Europe with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel’s baton, and a role debut as Suzuki in Madama Butterfly in a new production by Lillian Groag at Boston Lyric Opera.

Concert appearances of the season include Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs both with Christoph Eschenbach and the National Symphony Orchestra and with Robert Spano and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Debussy’s La Damoiselle élue and the Duruflé Requiem with Donald Runnicles and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with David Robertson and the Saint Louis Symphony, Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony, Louis Langrée and the Cincinnati Symphony, and with Leonard Slatkin and the Detroit Symphony, as well as Lieberson’s The World in Flower with Grant Gershon and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. The artist is pleased both to return to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with Edward Gardner conducting a program of Elgar’s Sea Pictures and Britten’s Spring Symphony and to debut with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra with Adams’s The Gospel According to the Other Mary led by Markus Stenz. Read More

Theodore Kuchar

Theodore Kuchar, one of the most prolifically recorded conductors of the past decade, appears on over 100 compact discs for the Naxos, Brilliant Classics, Ondine and Marco Polo labels. For the past 17 years, he has served as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of two of Europe’s preeminent orchestras, the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine. He presently also serves as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfonica de Venezuela and the Fresno Philharmonic. An avid chamber musician, he served as the Artistic Director of The Australian Festival of Chamber Music (1990-2006), and has served as the Artistic Director of the Nevada Chamber Music Festival since 2005. Since 2004, he has served as Resident Conductor at the Kent/Blossom Music Festival, the educational institution established by the late George Szell, in cooperation with The Cleveland Orchestra. Read More.

Program Notes Coming Soon

Dame Janet Baker performing one of the songs from Les nuits d’ete by Berlioz.