The Program

Stravinsky: Dumbarton Oaks
Henze: Neapolitan Songs
Ravel: Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé 
Pintscher: Songs from Solomon’s Garden

The Artists

The Curtis Chamber Orchestra draws its members from the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, comprising over 100 players, all students at the Curtis Institute of Music, and has performed under the batons of Christoph Eschenbach, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Sir Simon Rattle, and Wolfgang Sawallisch, among others.  It has also appeared as orchestra-in-residence at the Rencontres Musicales d’Evian in France and participated in Switzerland’s Verbier Festival in 1998 and 1999.  As part of the Institute’s 75th-anniversary celebrations in 1999, the orchestra made a 13-city tour of Germany, Austrai, Spain, Portugal, and Switzerland with conductor André Previn and violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter.  Curtis is considered one of the finest music conservatories in the world, and its graduates have made musical history as solo performers.  In today’s top 25 American and Canadian orchestras, 226 players of Curtis-trained, with 72 holding principal chairs.

In his mid-thirties, Matthias Pintscher may be called the most sought-after German composer of his generation.  He divides his time equally between composing and conducting.  He began his musical training in conducting, studying with Peter Eötvös, but composing took a more prominent role in his life while he was in his early twenties.  Naturally noted for his interpretations of contemporary music, he developed an affinity for repertoire of the late 19th and the 20th centuries – for Bruckner, the French romantic masters, Berlioz, Ravel, Debussy, and for the Second Viennese School -- along with a rich variety of other scores of particular significance to the specific periods in the long narrative of music.  He works regularly with contemporary music ensembles such as ensemble modern, Klangforum Wien, ensemble contrechamps, Ensemble Intercontemporain,  Avanti (Helsinki), remix (Porto) and the Scharoun Ensemble of the Berlin Philharmonic. In 2009 he was artist-in-residence for the Scharaun Ensemble’s 2009 Festival in Zermatt, Switzerland.  He makes his home in New York and Paris.  For more information on Matthias Pintscher visit www.matthiaspintscher.com.