Peter Oundjian Returns to Conduct the Juilliard Orchestra in Works by Bloch and Bruckner on Thursday, April 11, 2019, at 7:30pm in Alice Tully Hall

Violist Tabitha Rhee Is the Soloist in Bloch’s Suite for Viola and Orchestra

NEW YORK –– Juilliard alumnus Peter Oundjian returns to conduct the Juilliard Orchestra on Thursday, April 11, 2019, at 7:30pm in Alice Tully Hall. The program features Bloch’s Suite for Viola and Orchestra with Juilliard violist Tabitha Rhee and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major (“Romantic”).

Tickets are $30 ($15 for full-time students with a valid ID) and available at juilliard.edu/calendar.

About the Program

Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) composed his Suite for Viola and Piano in New York between February and May 1919. The work was premiered by violist Louis Bailly, who was the violist in the New York-based Flonzaley Quartet, and pianist Harold Bauer at the Berkshire Festival on September 27, 1919. A year later, at his Carnegie Hall debut, Bailly premiered Bloch’s orchestration of the suite with the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Artur Bodanzky, on November 5 and 7, 1920.

Anton Bruckner began working on his Fourth Symphony in January 1874. He sent it on to the Vienna Philharmonic in 1875 for a rehearsal, but only the first movement was accepted; the remainder of the score was rejected. In 1878, he revised the first two movements and replaced the finale; he also eliminated the scherzo and added a new third movement. He returned to the work again the following year, and composed a third version of the finale. This version had its premiere on February 20, 1881 with conductor Hans Richter in Vienna, where it was well received. After the performance, Bruckner made a cut in the slow movement and reworked the finale again. This edition was published by musicologist Robert Haas in 1936 and is the version that will be performed on this concert.

About Peter Oundjian

Conductor Peter Oundjian’s (MM ’81, violin) 2018-19 season includes debuts with the Indianapolis and New Zealand symphony orchestras, and return engagements with the St. Louis, Baltimore, Atlanta, Utah, Colorado, and New World symphonies as well as the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. In January he transitioned from artistic advisor to music director for the Colorado Music Festival, commencing a five-year tenure. 

The prior year was Oundjian's 14th and final season as music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO). His appointment in 2004 led to recordings, tours, and innovative programming as well as extensive audience growth, significantly strengthening the ensemble's presence in the world. In 2014, he led the TSO on a tour of Europe, which included a performance at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw and the first performance of a North American orchestra at Reykjavík's Harpa Hall. In the 2016-17 season, Oundjian led the TSO on a major tour of Israel and Europe.

From 2012 to 2018, Oundjian was music director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Under his baton, the orchestra toured China, the U.S., and Europe. Together they recorded extensively for Sony and Chandos, and presented Britten's monumental War Requiem at the 2018 BBC Proms.

He has conducted in Berlin, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, New York, Chicago, and Sydney. He has also appeared at annual festivals from the BBC Proms and the Prague Spring Festival to the Edinburgh Festival and the Philadelphia Orchestra's Mozart Festival, where he was artistic director from 2003 to 2005.

Oundjian was principal guest conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra from 2006 to 2010 and artistic director of the Caramoor International Music Festival in New York from 1997 to 2007. Since 1981, he has been a visiting professor at the Yale School of Music, and earned the university's Sanford Medal for distinguished service to music in 2013.

About Tabitha Rhee

Violist Tabitha Rhee is pursuing a bachelor’s of music degree at Juilliard, studying with Misha Amory and Heidi Castleman. She is the proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship. She is also a recipient of the Jerome and Elaine Nerenberg Foundation Scholarship from the Musicians Club of Women and won the Society of American Musicians Young Artist Competition. She has performed as a soloist with the Skokie Valley Symphony, the Madison Symphony Orchestra, and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. An active chamber musician, Rhee has recently attended the Yellow Barn Young Artist Program as well as the Finckel-Wu Han Chamber Music Program at the Aspen Music Festival, where she was a New Horizons Fellow. In previous summers, she has toured with the National Youth Orchestra of the United States, and she has also served as principal violist of the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra. A founding member of the Wisconsin Intergenerational Orchestra, Rhee also serves as an artistic assistant and sectional coach when she is back home in Brookfield. Her prominent chamber coaches include Roger Tapping, Darrett Adkins, Samuel Rhodes, Laurie Smukler, and Natasha Brofsky, and she is a former student of Roland and Almita Vamos at the Music Institute of Chicago Academy. Rhee will be participating at the Music@Menlo International Program this summer.

About the Juilliard Orchestra

Juilliard’s largest and most visible student performing ensemble, the Juilliard Orchestra, is known for delivering polished and passionate performances of works spanning the repertoire. Comprising more than 350 students in the bachelor’s and master’s degree programs, the orchestra appears throughout the season in concerts on the stages of Juilliard’s Peter Jay Sharp Theater, Alice Tully Hall, David Geffen Hall, and Carnegie Hall.

The orchestra is a strong partner to Juilliard’s other divisions, appearing in opera and dance productions as well as presenting an annual concert of world premieres by Juilliard student composers. The Juilliard Orchestra welcomes an impressive roster of world-renowned guest conductors this season including John Adams, Marin Alsop, Joseph Colaneri, Mark Elder, Barbara Hannigan, Steve Osgood, and Gil Rose as well as faculty members Jeffrey Milarsky, Itzhak Perlman, Matthias Pintscher, and David Robertson.  

The Juilliard Orchestra has toured across the U.S. and throughout Europe, South America, and Asia, where it was the first Western conservatory ensemble allowed to visit and perform following the opening of the People’s Republic of China in 1987, and also returning two decades later, in 2008.

Other ensembles under the Juilliard Orchestra umbrella include the conductorless Juilliard Chamber Orchestra, the Juilliard Wind Orchestra, and the new-music groups AXIOM and New Juilliard Ensemble.

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Program Listing:

Thursday, April 11, 2019, 7:30pm, Alice Tully Hall

Juilliard Orchestra

Peter Oundjian, Conductor

Tabitha Rhee, Viola

 

Ernest BLOCH Suite for Viola and Orchestra

Anton BRUCKNER Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major (“Romantic”)

 

Tickets are $30 ($15 for full-time students with a valid ID) and available at juilliard.edu/calendar.