Principal Guest Conductor Donald Runnicles to Lead ASO in Two Weeks of Concerts

First Program To Include Atlanta Symphony Premiere of Britten Violin Concerto With Guest Violinist James Ehnes

Second Program To Feature Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus, With Soprano Nicole Cabell and Mezzo-Soprano Kelley O’Connor
ORCHESTRA TO HOST PRE-CONCERT CHAMBER MUSIC RECITAL JANUARY 19, 2012

MR. RUNNICLES TO LEAD READING SESSION WITH ATLANTA SYMPHONY YOUTH ORCHESTRA

Principal Guest Conductor Donald Runnicles, who is celebrating his 11th season of artistic partnership with Music Director Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, will lead the Orchestra in Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony January 19 and 21, at 8:00 p.m., and January 22, 2012, at 3:00 p.m. in Atlanta Symphony Hall at the Woodruff Arts Center. Guest violinist James Ehnes will join the Orchestra for the Atlanta Symphony premiere of Britten’s Violin Concerto. These performances will mark Mr. Ehnes’s second appearance with the Orchestra, as well as his second collaboration with Mr. Runnicles and the Orchestra in Atlanta.

Prior to the performance on Thursday, January 19, 2012, members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra will host a pre-concert chamber music recital from 6:45–7:30 p.m. in Atlanta Symphony Hall. The program will include the First Movement of Beethoven’s “Archduke” Piano Trio and Mahler’s Piano Quartet, and will feature the following Orchestra musicians: Violins William Pu and Olga Shpitko, Viola Lachlan McBane, Cellos Karen Freer and Brad Ritchie, and Pianist Peter Marshall. The chamber music recital is free and open to all concert ticket holders.

The following week, Mr. Runnicles will lead the Orchestra in Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony January 26 and 28, 2012, at 8:00 p.m. in Atlanta Symphony Hall at the Woodruff Arts Center. The program will feature the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus, as well as Soprano Nicole Cabell and Mezzo-Soprano Kelley O’Connor.

Ms. Cabell and Ms. O’Connor are both frequent guests, and friends, of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Ms. O’Connor was recently featured in the Orchestra’s June 2011 ASO Media release of Lieberson’s Neruda Songs and Atlanta School of Composers member Christopher Theofanidis’s Symphony No. 1.

Additionally, Mr. Runnicles will lead a reading session with the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra during a rehearsal in late January. This will mark his first collaboration with the Youth Orchestra.