CMU Philharmonic & Chorus

WHO:
Carnegie Mellon University Philharmonic
Andrés Cárdenes, Artistic Director
Carnegie Mellon University Chorus
Thomas W. Douglas, Director of Choral Activities

WITH:
Manfred Honeck, guest conductor

REQUIEM SOLOISTS:
Lianne Coble, soprano
Amanda Crider, mezzo-soprano
Kyle Stegall, tenor
Tom McNichols, bass

REQUIEM NARRATOR:
Verne Lundquist

COST:
$5 General Admission
All students, along with CMU/Pitt faculty and staff, are free w/ valid ID at the door.

Live webcast not available for this concert due to contract restrictions.

DETAILS:
Guest conductor Manfred Honeck will the lead the Carnegie Mellon University Philharmonic & Chorus in a performance of his dramatic and unique version of Mozart's Requiem Mass, K. 626. Legendary CBS Sports BroadcasterVerne Lundquist will complement this monumental work with readings from Mozart's letters to his father. The letters, as well as poems, scripture, church bells, Gregorian chant, and haunting text of the Requiem, create the memorial service for Mozart that should have been. Also on the program is Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, From the New World.

At 7:15 pm in the Carnegie Music Hall Foyer, Mo. Honeck will present a pre-concert lecture about the Mozart Requiem. This lecture, entitled Mozart's Death in Words and Music, will explore Mo. Honeck's unique interpretation of the Requiem through musical examples and text. 

BIO:
Manfred Honeck has served as Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra since the 2008-2009 season. After two extensions, his contract now runs until the end of the 2019-2020 season. To great acclaim, Manfred Honeck and his orchestra perform regularly for European audiences. Since 2010, annual tour performances have led them to numerous European music capitals and major music festivals, amongst them Rheingau Musik Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn, Musikfest Berlin, Grafenegg Festival, Lucerne Festival and the BBC Proms. The 2012 tour focused on a week-long residency at the Vienna Musikverein. In summer 2013, concerts took place in Grafenegg, Berlin, Bucharest, Paris, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Lucerne and Bonn. 

Several recordings, amongst them Mahler's Symphony No. 4, which won a 2012 International Classical Music Award, are available on Japanese label Exton. Manfred Honeck's successful work with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is now captured by Reference Recordings. The first SACD - of Strauss tone poems - was released in fall 2013 and received rave reviews. The second recording, of Dvorak's Symphony No. 8 and the Symphonic Suite from Janacek's opera Jenufa, conceptualized by Manfred Honeck himself, followed in summer 2014 and was likewise enthusiastically received. Several additional recordings are completed and it is expected that two releases will be issued per year.

From 2007 to 2011, Manfred Honeck was Music Director of the Staatsoper Stuttgart where he conducted premieres including Berlioz's Les Troyens, Mozart's Idomeneo, Verdi's Aida, Richard Strauss's Rosenkavalier, Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites and Wagner's Lohengrin and Parsifal, as well as numerous symphonic concerts. His operatic guest appearances include Semperoper Dresden, Komische Oper Berlin, Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, Royal Opera of Copenhagen, the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg and the Salzburg Festival.

Born in Austria, Manfred Honeck received his musical training at the Academy of Music in Vienna. Many years of experience as a member of the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera Orchestra and at the helm of the Vienna Jeunesse Orchestra have given his conducting a distinctive stamp. He began his career as assistant to Claudio Abbado in Vienna. Subsequently, he was engaged by the Zurich Opera House, where he was bestowed the prestigious European Conductor’s Award in 1993. Other early stations of his career include Leipzig, where he was one of three main conductors of the MDR Symphony Orchestra and Oslo, where he assumed the post of Music Director at the Norwegian National Opera on short notice for a year and was engaged as Principal Guest Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra for several years. From 2000 to 2006 he was Music Director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm and, from 2008 to 2011, Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he has resumed for another three years at the beginning of the 2013/2014 season.

As a guest conductor Manfred Honeck has worked with leading international orchestras such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Staatskapelle Dresden, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Accademia di Santa Cecilia Rome and the Vienna Philharmonic. Orchestras he conducted in the United States include New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra and Boston Symphony Orchestra. He is also a regular guest at the Verbier Festival. In February 2013 he gave his successful debut with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, resulting in a CD recording of Dvorak's works together with Anne- Sophie Mutter for DG which received an Echo Klassik award in 2014. The current season sees him return to Bamberg, Stuttgart, Rome and New York as well as to the Vienna Symphony (a CD of works by the Strauss family was released in summer 2014) and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. He will also conduct Tonhalleorchester Zürich and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, amongst others.

Manfred Honeck has received honorary doctorates from St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania and, most recently, from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Moreover, he has been Artistic Director of the "International Concerts Wolfegg" in Germany for more than fifteen years.