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City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
In addition, the organisation runs an adult chorus and three youth choruses as well as CBSO Centre - the rehearsal and administrative home of the CBSO - which has also become a popular venue for local arts groups, media launches and business meetings. Through its busy Education Department, the CBSO brings music to more than 25,000 young people across the Midlands each year and its current Composer-in-Association is Julian Anderson, an outstanding talent from amongst the younger generation of British composer, who was appointed in January 2001 for a period of three years. The Orchestra established itself as a major force during its 18 year association with Sir Simon Rattle and has continued to prosper under its current Music Director, the young Finnish conductor Sakari Oramo, who was appointed Principal Conductor in 1996 then Music Director in August 1999. Mark Elder CBE
Mark Elder has worked with many of the world’s leading symphony orchestras including the Chicago Symphony, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the London Philharmonic, and works regularly in the most prominent international opera houses, including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Opéra National de Paris and the Glyndebourne Festival Opera. During his years at ENO he brought international acclaim to the company for its work in London, as well as leading tours to the USA (including the Met in New York) and Russia (including the Bolshoi in Moscow and the Mariinsky in St Petersburg). Mark Elder has made many recordings with orchestras including the Hallé, London Philharmonic, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, and the Rochester Philharmonic, as well as with English National Opera, in repertoire ranging from Verdi, Strauss and Wagner to contemporary music. Mark Elder was awarded the CBE in 1989, and won an Olivier Award in 1991 for his outstanding work at ENO. Gerard McBurney Gerard McBurney spent two years in the Moscow Conservatory as a pupil of Edison Denisov and Roman Ledenev, before returning to London in 1988, since when he has divided his time between composing, arranging, teaching, writing and broadcasting. He has made many arrangements, completions and reconstructions of Shostakovich’s music including the orchestral music from the 1931 music-hall show ‘Hypothetically Murdered’ op.31 (1991), and five forgotten movements from the 1932 Akimov production of ‘Hamlet’ op.32 (1994). For Pimlico Opera he reorchestrated Shostakovich’s 1958 musical comedy, ‘Moscow Cheryomushki’ (1994), reducing the composer’s lavish original to the dimensions of a popular dance-band. This version was then expanded for David Pountney’s 2001 production for Opera North, under the title ‘Paradise Moscow’. At the request of Shostakovich’s widow, Gerard McBurney reinvented from sketches the lost 1938 Jazz Suite No.2, which was given its first performance at the Last Night of the 2000 BBC Proms season by Sir Andrew Davies and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Gerard McBurney has also written a number of scholarly essays on these works and their position in Shostakovich’s life and the culture to which he belonged. Dmitri Kharitonov Dmitri Kharitonov studied piano, composition and voice from an early age,
and at the age of thirteen wrote his first musical composition. From 1976
he studied at the Rimsky-Korsakov College of Music and at the State
Conservatory of Music in Leningrad. From 1978 he studied at the Nejdanova
State Conservatory of Music of Odessa and completed his vocal studies,
gaining diplomas for vocal studies, composition and piano as well as
teaching. |
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The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra enjoys an enviable reputation
for musical excellence and is regarded as one of the world’s leading
orchestra, winning the 2002 Gramophone ‘Record of the Year’ for its
recording of the Saint-Saëns Piano Concertos with the pianist Stephen
Hough. It is the resident orchestra at Symphony Hall in Birmingham, one of
the world’s finest concert and recording halls, and is firmly established
on the international scene having worked with many prestigious conductors
since it was founded in 1920.
Mark Elder was Principal Guest Conductor of the
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 1992 – 1995 He is now Music Director of the Hallé, having taken up his appointment
in September 2000. He was Music Director of English National Opera between
1979 and 1993, and Music Director of the Rochester
Philharmonic Orchestra in the USA from 1989 – 1994. He has also held
positions as Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and
the London Mozart Players.
