March 19, 2002 Contact: Tiffany Kuo

Program includes Haydn's Overture to L'infedelt delusa, Elgar's Concerto in E Minor for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 85 with Cellist Wendy Law, Mozart's Symphony No. 32 in G Major, K.318, and Stravinsky's Petrushka (1947 version)

The Juilliard Orchestra led by guest conductor David Atherton with Juilliard cellist Wendy Law will present the final Avery Fisher Hall concert of this season on Monday, April 29 at 8 PM. Tickets go on sale March 25, and are $15, $7, and free for students and seniors with identification. Please visit the Avery Fisher Hall Box Office at 65^th Street and Broadway, or call CenterCharge at (212) 721-6500.

Conductor David Atherton, of Lancashire, England studied music at Cambridge University. Mr. Atherton gained an international reputation, when Sir George Solti invited Mr. Atherton to join the music staff of the Royal Opera House, London after observing a performance at Cambridge. The following year, at age 24, Mr. Atherton became the youngest conductor ever to appear at the Royal Opera House. In his twelve years as resident conductor of the Royal Opera, Mr. Atherton gave over one hundred and fifty performances at Covent Garden and conducted the Opera on a highly successful visit to La Scala. He returns to Covent Garden frequently as a guest conductor, his most recent engagements having been new productions of The Love for Three Oranges, Peter Grimes, and Billy Budd, a work he has championed with the San Francisco and Metropolitan operas.

In recent seasons, Mr. Atherton conducted the Metropolitan Opera and the English National Opera in Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice. Other recent productions at the Met include Rossini's Barber of Seville, and Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream and Peter Grimes. Mr. Atherton has also appeared with numerous orchestras worldwide, including Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London's BBC Symphony, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra at the Flanders Festival, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. In the winter of 2001, he led the Glyndebourne touring company in a U.S. tour in a production of Jancek's Vec Makropulos.

Mr. Atherton was co-founder of the London Sinfonietta in 1967, and as its music director, gave the first performance of many important contemporary works. The Sinfonietta, widely regarded as one of the world's leading chamber orchestras, has made countless recordings with him, including highly praised collections of works by Schoenberg, Jancek, and Weill. His work in the recording studio has earned an Edison Award, many Grammy Award nominations, and the sought-after Grand Prix du Disque. He also has been honored with the Serge Koussevitsky International Critics' Award and the Prix Caecilia. For recording of Tippett's opera King Priam, he was given the coveted International Record Critics' Award.

After becoming the youngest conductor in the history of the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1968, Mr. Atherton has traveled extensively, particularly to the United States, where he regularly visits the leading North American orchestras, notably those in Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minnesota, Montreal, New York, and San Francisco. Other recent engagements have taken him to Australia and Japan as well as the Czech Republic (to open the Prague Spring Festival), Sweden, Holland, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Germany (to open the Berlin Festival with the Berlin Philharmonic).

Mr. Atherton has held many posts as music director and conducting positions of orchestras around the world, including the San Diego Symphony from 1980 to 1987, the Mainly Mozart Festival in California every summer since his founding in 1989, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the BBC Symphony orchestras in the 1980s, as well as the London festivals of the complete works of Ravel, Stravinsky, Webern, and Varse with the London Sinfonietta, London Symphony, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Royal Opera House. Since 1989 he has been the music director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, and he toured with this group to the West Coast of the United States during the 1995-96 season; he relinquished this post at the end of the 1999-2000 season. From the 1993-94 season until recently, Mr. Atherton also held the post of principal guest conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

Cellist Wendy Law has appeared with orchestras world-wide, including the Boston Symphony, Singapore Symphony, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, New Philharmonia, and New England Conservatory Symphony, collaborating with various conductors including Robert Spano, Richard Westerfield, and Benjamin Zander. Ms. Law has also toured Chile and Argentina with the New England Conservatory Philharmonic Orchestra, which was filmed for a documentary, and later broadcast nationally on Public Television Station.

An active chamber musician, Ms. Law has performed with Yo-Yo Ma, Pamela Frank, Leon Fleisher, and the Borromeo String Quartet. As a member of the Amaryllis String Quartet, Ms. Law has performed at the Kennedy Center, Royal Palace of Chile, and WGBH Radio Boston. Fascinated by interdisciplinary art, Ms. Law has collaborated with the Juilliard Dance Ensemble with choreographer Igal Perry performing the Bach Cello Suites.

A recipient of numerous awards, Ms. Law has won first prizes in the Fischoff National Competition, Kingsville International Competition, and Boston Symphony Orchestra Young Artist Competition, as well as the highest award from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts.

Ms. Law graduated with distinction from the New England Conservatory studying with Laurence Lesser. She also has attended music festivals around the world including Ravinia, Banff, Caramoor, Piatigorsky Seminar, Tanglewood, and the New Music Festival in Toronto. Ms. Law has been working with Joel Krosnick at Juilliard and is graduating with a master of music degree this spring. Ms. Law is the recipient of the Bernard A. Diamant Scholarship in Cello and the Morris and Elfriede Stonzek Memorial Scholarship at Juilliard.