September 29, 2002 Contact: Paula Mlyn

Program features Britten’s
Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes,
Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-Flat Major, and
Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 in G Minor,
Op. 103 ("The Year 1905")

MUSIC director of the Oregon Symphony James DePreist leads the Juilliard Orchestra on Thursday November 7 at 8 PM in Alice Tully Hall in a program of music which includes Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major, and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 in G Minor, Op. 103 ("The Year 1905"). Mr. DePreist has appeared as a guest conductor for Juilliard ensembles on six occasions since 1991; he also is the subject of an upcoming documentary for WHYY in Philadelphia (PBS).

Free tickets are required for this concert and are available at the Juilliard Box Office beginning October 24. The Box Office, located at 60 Lincoln Center Plaza, is open Monday through Friday, from 11 AM to 6 PM, (212) 769-7406. The student soloist for the Liszt Concerto is to be announced after October 11.

Regarded as one of America’s leading conductors, James DePreist has been music director of the Oregon Symphony since 1980, and becomes its laureate music director at the start of the 2003-04 season. As a guest conductor he has appeared with most major orchestras throughout the United States and Canada, including the Atlanta Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Boston Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the Juilliard Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony, the National Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Saint Louis Symphony, and the Toronto Symphony, among many others. He has had successful tenures as music director of the Monte Carlo Philharmonic and as principal guest conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic, while guest conducting engagements have taken him to the Netherlands Philharmonic, the Hallé Orchestra, Vienna’s Tonknstler Orchestra, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, to name just several. Upcoming engagements include appearances with the Cincinnati Symphony, the Quebec Symphony, and a return to the Aspen Music Festival, where he has had a long-standing association.

Born in Philadelphia in 1936, Mr. DePreist (the nephew of contralto Marian Anderson) pursued studies in composition with Vincent Persichetti at the Philadelphia Conservatory and earned bachelor of science and master of arts degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1962, while on a State Department tour in Bangkok, he contracted polio. Making a partial recovery, he went on to win a first prize in the 1964 Dimitri Mitropoulos International Conducting Competition. He then was selected by Leonard Bernstein to be an assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic for the 1965-66 season. After a successful European debut with the Rotterdam Philharmonic in 1969, he was awarded a Martha Baird Rockefeller grant. In 1971 Antal Dorati chose Mr. DePreist to become his associate conductor with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. and in 1976, Mr. DePreist became music director of the Quebec Symphony, Canada’s oldest orchestra, where he remained until 1983. James DePreist has been awarded fifteen honorary doctorates and is the author of two books of poetry. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. He also is a recipient of the Insignia of Commander of the Order of the Lion of Finland.