Carlos Miguel Prieto Leads the Juilliard Orchestra in Works by Ortiz, Harbison, and Copland on Saturday, December 14, 2019

NEW YORK –– Carlos Miguel Prieto, music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México and music director of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, leads the Juilliard Orchestra on Saturday, December 14, 2019, at 7:30pm in Alice Tully Hall. The program features Gabriela Ortiz’s Téenek—Invenciones de Territorio, John Harbison’s Concerto for Viola and Orchestra (1988) with Juilliard violist Sean Juhl, and Copland’s Symphony No. 3.

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

About the Program

Gabriela Ortiz, the daughter of two founders of the Mexican traditional group Los Folkloristas, grew up immersed in the sounds of Mexican vernacular music. She studied at some of the most esteemed music schools in Mexico and Europe, earning her doctorate from London’s City University. The Los Angeles Philharmonic commissioned and gave the world premiere of Téenek—Invenciones de Territorio as part of the 2017 CDMX (Ciudad de México) Festival at Disney Hall. Téenek is the language spoken in the Huasteca region of Mexico; it means “people from here.”

John Harbison writes in his note: “The viola was my instrument of choice, the one I picked out as a very young concertgoer. It had a commanding awkward size, a somewhat veiled melancholic tone quality, and it seemed always in the middle of things, a good vantage point for a composer (which I already wanted to be).” Harbison describes the concerto: “The piece moves from inwardness to ebullience and from ambiguous and shifting harmonic language to a kind of tonality. Within this broad scenario there was room for the kind of paradoxes I enjoy: a first movement in which nothing seems capable of repetition followed by one with literal repeats, a third movement of great formal and metrical simplicity followed by a finale filled with intricate metrical modulations.”

Aaron Copland’s Third Symphony, which was composed for Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra as a celebration of the end of World War II, had its world premiere in October 1946. Koussevitzky said, “There is no doubt about it—this is the greatest American symphony.” Copland incorporated his Fanfare for the Common Man, which he wrote in 1942, into the last movement of the symphony.

 About Carlos Miguel Prieto

Carlos Miguel Prieto—Musical America’s 2019 Conductor of the Year—is known for his charismatic conducting and dynamic, expressive interpretations. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School, Prieto is a highly influential cultural leader as well as the leading Mexican conductor of his generation. He has been music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacionalde México (OSN) since 2007. In 2008 he was appointed music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería, which performs a two-month-long series of summer programs in Mexico City. Prieto is known for championing Latin American music and has conducted more than 100 world premieres, many of which he commissioned. In 2016 he led the OSN on a nine-concert tour of Germany and Austria performing the works of Mexican and Latin American composers in halls such as the Wiener Musikverein.

Following a summer leading Carnegie Hall’s first NYO2 tour and the invitation to lead NYO2 again in summer 2019, Prieto began the 2018-19 season conducting the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, made his debut with the National Symphony Orchestra, and returned to the Detroit Symphony. In the spring, Prieto made return appearances with The Hallé, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, and Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa. Prieto has appeared with international orchestras including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Beijing Symphony, and NDR Elbphilharmonie. Recent recordings include works by Bruch, Beethoven and Mendelssohn, with violinist Philippe Quint and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería, on Avanticlassic, and Korngold’s Violin Concerto on Naxos, which received two Grammy nominations. In 2013 Prieto released a 12-DVD set of live recordings of Mahler’s complete symphonies as part of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería’s 35th Anniversary season.

A passionate proponent of music education, Prieto was principal conductor of the Orchestra of the Americas from its inception until 2011, when he was appointed music director. In 2010 he conducted the ensemble alongside Valery Gergiev on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the World Economic Forum at Carnegie Hall. In 2018 Prieto led the Orchestra of the Americas on its European tour with concerts from Ukraine to Scotland and was awarded an honorary doctor of music by Loyola University.

About Sean Juhl

A native of New York City, Sean Juhl (Pre-College ‘18, viola) began studying the violin with his mother at age 4. After experimenting with the viola for the first time in 2014, Sean fell in love with the instrument and has since performed as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral player in venues around the world such as the Royal Albert Hall in London, New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, among many others. Juhl took part in the Juilliard Orchestra’s tour to London last summer, performing alongside colleagues from the Royal Academy of Music in the BBC Proms under the direction of Edward Gardner. Juhl also served as a coprincipal violist with the National Youth Orchestra—USA in its 2016 and 2017 seasons, performing under the batons of Marin Alsop, Christoph Eschenbach, and Valery Gergiev. An avid and passionate chamber musician, Juhl is an alum of the Perlman Music Program and was a quarterfinalist at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in 2017. His past teachers include Toby Appel, Joey Corpus, and Bela Horvath. A sophomore at Juilliard, he studies with Carol Rodland and holds William Randolph Hearst and Joseph F. McCrindle scholarships.

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 alumna Marin Alsop, Elim Chan, Anne Manson, Nicholas McGegan, alumnus Jörg Widmann, and alumna Keri-Lynn Wilson as well as faculty conductor 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:
Saturday, December 14, 2019, 7:30pm, Alice Tully Hall
Juilliard Orchestra
Carlos Miguel Prieto, Conductor
Sean Juhl, Violist

Gabriela ORTÍZ Téenek—Invenciones de Territorio
John HARBISON Concerto for Viola and Orchestra
Aaron COPLAND Symphony No. 3

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