Overture Magazine - 2015-2016 Season January-February 2016 | Page 29

co u rte sy o f BSO

Mario Venzago

Mario Venzago is the
principal conductor
and artistic director of
the Bern Symphony
Orchestra and artist in association at
Finland’s Tapiola Sinfonietta. Mr. Venzago
has directed the Gothenburg Symphony
Orchestra and the Indianapolis Symphony
Orchestra, and from 2000 to 2003, he was
Artistic Director of the Baltimore Summer
Fest as successor to Pinchas Zukerman.
Born in 1948, Mr. Venzago is a native
of Switzerland, and began his piano studies at age 5. Before taking up conducting,
Mr. Venzago was a concert pianist at
Radiotelevisione Svizerra in Switzerland,
and performed throughout Europe as a
soloist and accompanist.
Mr. Venzago’s recordings of the operas
Venus and Penthesilea and of the choral
works of Othmar Schoeck received great
international recognition and prestigious
awards, as did his first film, My Brother
the Conductor by Alberto Venzago, which
was shown in cinemas across Europe and
released on DVD. In the spring of 2015,
the collaboration between Mario Venzago
and the label CPO on the project The
Other Bruckner, with all 10 Bruckner symphonies, was completed.

Ste ve J . Sh er man

Mario Venzago last appeared with the
BSO in May 2015, when he led a program
of Schubert, Haydn, Strauss, and Debussy.

André Watts

André Watts burst
upon the music world
at the age of 16 when
Leonard Bernstein
chose him to make his debut with the
New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s
Concerts, broadcast nationwide on CBSTV.  Only two weeks later, Bernstein asked
him to substitute at the last minute for the
ailing Glenn Gould in performances of
Liszt’s E-flat Concerto with the New York
Philharmonic, thus launching his career in
storybook fashion.
Mr. Watts has appeared on numerous
programs produced by PBS, the BBC and
the Arts and Entertainment Network,

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January– February 2016 |

O v ertur e

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