Cliburn Laureate Rudolph Buchbinder to perform with Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra on September 25

by PegNews wire

World-renowned pianist Rudolf Buchbinder will open the 2008-2009 Cliburn Concerts season on Thursday, September 25 at 7:30 p.m. in Bass Performance Hall. Mr. Buchbinder, who has been called "the Viennese oracle on the core literature of Haydn, Beethoven, and Brahms" by the Philadelphia Inquirer, will conduct and perform with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in a concert titled "A Night in Old Vienna."

The program includes three piano concertos: Haydn's Piano Concerto in D major, Hob. XVIII:11; Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466; and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37.

A 1966 Cliburn laureate, Mr. Buchbinder will conduct the orchestra from the piano as he plays. His appearance with the Fort Worth Symphony is part of an ongoing Cliburn program showcasing winners who have also developed significant conducting careers.

With more than 100 recordings to his credit, the Austrian musician has established himself as one of the most important pianists on the international scene. He is a regular guest of the world's great orchestras, and recently celebrated both his 60th birthday and the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth with awe-inspiring performances of twelve Mozart concertos, as soloist and conductor, with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna Festival.

Prior to Mr. Buchbinder's Cliburn Concerts performance, there will be a Cliburn Conversations presentation hosted by Dr. Carol Reynolds at 6:30 p.m. in the Green Room of Bass Performance Hall. Cliburn Conversations is free to all ticket holders and is designed to provide insightful information about the evening's program.

RUDOLF BUCHBINDER

Firmly established as one of the most important artists on the international scene, Austrian pianist and conductor Rudolf Buchbinder is a regular guest of such renowned orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, London Philharmonic, National Symphony, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He has collaborated with the world's most distinguished conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Christoph von Dohnányi, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Carlo Maria Giulini, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Lorin Maazel, Zdenek Macal, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Jukka- Pekka Saraste, and Wolfgang Sawallisch. He is a regular guest at the Salzburger Festspiele and at other major festivals around the world.

Mr. Buchbinder has more than 100 recordings to his credit, covering an enormous range of repertoire, including the complete cycle of Beethoven sonatas; the complete Beethoven concertos; the complete Mozart piano concertos; all of Haydn's works for piano; both Brahms concertos; and all of the rarely performed Diabelli Variations collection, written by fifty Austrian composers. His eighteen-disc set of Haydn's works earned him the Grand Prix du Disque. Mr. Buchbinder's latest CDs, which are live recordings, feature him playing the Brahms piano concertos with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and as soloist and conductor in all five Beethoven piano concertos with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. In celebration of his sixtieth birthday in 2006, Mr. Buchbinder performed twelve Mozart piano concertos with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna Festwochen. EuroArts recently released a DVD of these performances.

Rudolf Buchbinder is the founding artistic director of the Grafenegg Music Festival, a major international music festival near Vienna, launched in August 2007. During the inaugural festival, he performed Beethoven's Concerto No. 5 with the London Symphony Orchestra and conductor Valery Gergiev. Other recent highlights include performances at the Jubilee Concert for the fiftieth anniversary of the Großer Musikvereinssaal in Vienna (where Mr. Buchbinder made his debut at age eleven in 1958); with the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala at Teatro alla Scala; of Beethoven sonata cycles in Warsaw, Berkeley, and at the Vienna Musikverein; with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin; and of all five Beethoven piano concertos over three days, with the Dresden Philharmonic.

This past summer, Mr. Buchbinder performed with the Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under Christoph Eschenbach, and with the NDR (North German Radio) Symphony Orchestra under Peter Ruzicka. He will visit Munich several times in the coming season, performing the complete cycle of Beethoven sonatas at the Prinzregententheater. In October and November, he will tour the United States with the Dresden Staatskapelle under Fabio Luisi, highlighted by concerts at Avery Fisher Hall in New York and Symphony Hall in Boston. In December, he will perform with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, led by Gustavo Dudamel. In February 2009, Mr. Buchbinder returns to the United States to perform Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, led by Manfred Honeck.

Mr. Buchbinder attaches considerable importance to the meticulous study of musical sources. He owns eighteen complete editions of Beethoven's sonatas and has an extensive collection of autograph scores, first editions, and original documents. He was admitted to the Vienna Musik Hochschule at age five, and remains the youngest student in the school's history. He is also a laureate of the Second Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

Source: Cliburn at the Bass