The university’s Performing Arts Center opens its 2005-2006 10th anniversary season with a concert by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra on Sept. 25 at 3 p.m. in Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall.
Robert Spano, music director, will conduct the ASO in a program featuring the Symphony No. 3 by Sibelius and the Brahms Violin Concerto with guest violinist Elmar Oliveira. The program will open with Aile du songe (Wing of Dream) by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho.
Spano is recognized internationally as one of the brightest and most imaginative conductors of his generation. He has conducted nearly every major North American orchestra, and his most recent recording with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus-the Berlioz Requiem-received the 2005 Grammy Award for best choral performance. Earlier this month, Spano conducted three critically acclaimed performances of Wagner’s Ring cycle at the Seattle Opera.
Violinist Elmar Oliveira is one of his generation’s most honored artists. He remains the first and only American violinist to win the gold medal at Moscow’s Tchaikovsky International Competition, and he was the first violinist to receive the coveted Avery Fisher Prize. He is a multiple Grammy nominee, and his many recordings include the Rautavaara Violin Concerto with the Helsinki Philharmonic, which won a Cannes Classical Award and appeared on Gramophone’s Editor’s Choice and other best recordings lists around the world.
A pre-concert lecture will be given by Lisa Prodan, a graduate student in UGA’s Hugh Hodgson School of Music. The lecture begins 45 minutes prior to the concert and is free and open to the public.
Tickets for the concert are $38-$43; UGA students can purchase tickets at half price. Tickets may be purchased at the ticket office in the Performing Arts Center, 542-4400, open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays.
