January 10, 2003
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Portland, Ore. … Guest Conductor Murry Sidlin will explore how the innovative sounds of American Jazz influenced and excited 20th century European composers in the Oregon Symphony’s second Nerve Endings concert of the 2002-2003 season, “Le Jazz Hot,” on Friday, Jan. 24, at 7:30pm at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. The Nerve Endings series is sponsored by the BridgePort Brewing Company.
Sidlin’s goal is to let the audience hear the moment when the American jazz sound reached European ears. “When European cafe musicians and composers got wind of an American collision of harmonies and heart-skipping rhythms they thought we had become mutants of some sort; but they had to try it, square as most of them were, and grow into it somehow,” Sidlin explained. In August of 2002, after eight seasons as Oregon Symphony Resident Conductor, Sidlin became Dean of Music at Catholic University in Washington D.C.
The first half of this concert will feature music by 20th century composers Aaron Copland, Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky and Constant Lambert. Pianist Michael Chertok, mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Madsen, and the Portland Symphonic Choir will be featured in Lambert’s “Rio Grande.” In the second half audiences will hear works by Milhaud and Liebermann’s concerto for Jazz Band and Symphony Orchestra featuring the Carlton Jackson/Dave Mills Big Band.
“Le Jazz Hot” will be performed Friday, Jan. 24, at 7:30pm at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in the Portland Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets range from $10 to $51 and may be purchased at the Oregon Symphony Ticket Office (923 SW Washington) Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., or charged by phone at (503)228-1353 or (800)228-7343. Tickets may also be purchased at all Ticketmaster outlets, by phone (790-ARTS), through Ticketmaster Online, or via the Symphony’s Web site at www.orsymphony.org. Service fees may apply.
Murry Sidlin completed his eighth and final season as Resident Conductor of the Oregon Symphony at the close of the 2001/2002 season. During his tenure, he founded and directed the Oregon Symphony Conducting Apprenticeship Program at Pacific University, holding the James DePreist Chair in Music. For eight years he conducted the Classical Hits series at the San Diego Symphony and served for several seasons as Principal Conductor of San Diego’s summer season. He has been Artistic Director of the Cascade Festival of Music in Bend for six seasons. On August 1, he became Dean of the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
In 1997 Sidlin arranged and conducted the premiere of a suite from Aaron Copland’s opera “The Tender Land” for chamber ensemble, designed as a companion work to Copland’s original chamber version of “Appalachian Spring.” A compact disc containing both works was released on the KOCH International label in 1998, featuring the Third Angle New Music Ensemble with Sidlin as conductor. Sidlin’s chamber arrangement of the complete opera “The Tender Land,” also featuring Third Angle, was released by KOCH in November of 1999 to launch the national year-long celebration toward Copland’s 100th birthday. Israel National Radio selected the recording to be broadcast nationally on the date of Copland’s 100th birthday, Nov. 14, 2000. Sidlin marked the birthday in Portland with a 10-day Copland Festival, including classical subscription and chamber concerts with the Oregon Symphony illuminating Copland’s life and work.
The summer of 2002 marked Sidlin’s 24th at the Aspen Music Festival, where he is Resident Artist/Teacher and Associate Director of Conducting Studies in addition to serving as Chair of the Faculty. He and Aspen Music Festival Music Director David Zinman have just completed the second summer of the American Academy of Conducting, a new school within the Aspen Festival for which they serve as the two resident teachers.
Murry Sidlin began his career as Assistant Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony under Sergiu Comissiona and was appointed by Antal Dorati as Resident Conductor of the National Symphony for four seasons. He served as Music Director of the New Haven Symphony for 12 seasons, and for eight of those seasons was also Music Director of the Long Beach Symphony in California.
Sidlin has conducted regularly throughout the country and abroad, including recent appearances with the St. Louis Symphony and the major orchestras of San Francisco, Houston, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Jerusalem, Madrid, I Solisti Veneti, Quebec, Honolulu, Seattle, Monte-Carlo, Vancouver B.C. Victoria B.C., Colorado and Utah, in addition to the Boston Pops, the San Antonio Symphony and Opera, the Houston Symphony and the Lindberg Orchestra of Holland. In December of 2002 Sidlin will conduct his ninth consecutive New Year’s Eve Gala with members of the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center.
He also has conducted hundreds of opera performances, including his composer-authorized arrangement, done as a major revival, of Copland’s “The Tender Land” and Prokofiev’s “The Love for Three Oranges” at Indiana University’s famed opera theater.
Sidlin was also the artistic director of “Nerve Endings” with the Oregon Symphony. This series featured innovative concerts that were designed to attract new audiences and expand the traditional role of the symphony orchestra. Each program was written and designed by Sidlin, and launched via the Knight Foundation of Miami’s “Magic of Music” initiative. “Nerve Endings” attracted hundreds of new subscribers each season. In April of 2002 he presented “Defiant Requiem,” a concert/drama which illuminates how and why the Verdi requiem was presented 16 times by the prisoners of the Terezin Concentration Camp in 1943/44.