Overture Magazine: 2017-2018 Season January-February 2018 | Page 25

TCHAIKOVSKY PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1
About the Artists
Marin Alsop
For Marin Alsop’s bio, please see pg. 7.
Gabriela
Montero
Gabriela Montero’s
visionary interpretations
and unique
improvisational gifts
have won her a devoted following around
the world. Anthony Tommasini remarked
in The New York Times, “Montero’s playing
had everything: crackling rhythmic brio,
subtle shadings, steely power…soulful
lyricism…unsentimental expressivity.”
Recent performance highlights
include recitals at Avery Fisher Hall, the
Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall, Vienna
Konzerthaus, Berlin Philharmonie,
Leipzig Gewandhaus, Sydney Opera
House, Amsterdam Concertgebouw,
Tokyo Orchard Hall and at the
Edinburgh, Salzburg, Lucerne, Ravinia,
Tanglewood, Saint-Denis, Aldeburgh,
Cheltenham, Rheingau, Ruhr, Bergen,
Istanbul and Lugano festivals.
Montero has also been invited to
perform with many of the world’s most
respected orchestras, including the
Royal Liverpool, Rotterdam, Dresden,
Oslo, Netherlands Radio and Malaysian
philharmonic orchestras; Chicago,
Houston, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Atlanta,
Toronto, Sydney and RTÉ National
symphony orchestras; the National Arts
Centre Orchestra of Canada, Leipzig
Gewandhaus Orchestra, Academy
of St. Martin in the Fields, NDR
Sinfonieorchester Hamburg and Zürcher
Kammerorchester; the Cleveland, City of
Birmingham Symphony, Philharmonia
and Komische Oper Berlin orchestras; and
the Vienna Symphony.
In addition to her interpretations of
the core piano repertoire, Montero is also
celebrated for her ability to improvise,
composing and playing new works in real
time. She says, “I connect to my audience
in a completely unique way— and they
connect with me. Because improvisation
is such a huge part of who I am, it is the
most natural and spontaneous way I
can express myself.” Whether in recital
or following a concerto performance,
Montero regularly invites her audiences to
choose themes on which she improvises.
Montero is also an award-winning and
bestselling recording artist. Her most
recent album featured Rachmaninoff’s
Piano Concerto No. 2, her own
composition, Ex Patria, and her signature
improvisations, winning Montero her
first Latin Grammy® for Best Classical
Album (Mejor Álbum de Música Clásica).
Previous recordings include Bach and
Beyond, which held the top spot on the
Billboard Classical Charts for several
month and garnered her two Echo Klassik
Awards. She also received a Grammy®
nomination for Baroque in 2008 and in
2010, released Solatino, an album inspired
by her Venezuelan homeland.
Montero debuted as a composer in 2011
with Ex Patria, a tone poem for piano
and orchestra and her emotional response
to Venezuela’s descent into lawlessness,
corruption and violence. Her piece had
its world-premiere tour in October of that
year with the Academy of St. Martin in
the Fields and, in 2015, was recorded and
released internationally with the YOA
Orchestra of the Americas and conductor
Carlos Miguel Prieto. She recorded her
first full-length composition, her Piano
Concerto No. 1, with the YOA and Prieto
in July of last year for ARTE.
A staunch advocate of human rights,
Montero was recently named an Honorary
Consul by Amnesty International
and was also selected as a nominee for
Outstanding Work in the Field of Human
Rights by the Human Rights Foundation.
She was invited to participate in the 2013
Women of the World Festival and has
spoken and performed twice at the World
Economic Forum. She was also awarded
the 2012 Rockefeller Award for her
contribution to the arts and was a featured
performer at Barack Obama’s 2008
Presidential Inauguration.
Born in Venezuela, Montero gave her
first public performance at the age of five.
At eight, she made her concerto debut in
her hometown of Caracas, which led to a
scholarship from the government to study
privately in the U.S. She continued her

studies under Hamish Milne at the Royal
Academy of Music in London, graduating
with the highest honors. She currently
resides in Barcelona with her husband and
two daughters.
Gabriela Montero last appeared with
the BSO in February 2017, performing
Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24, K. 491,
Markus Stenz, conductor.
About the Concert
RUMANIAN FOLK DANCES
Béla Bartók
(arr. Arthur Willner)
Born in Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary,
(now Romania), March 25, 1881; died in
New York City, NY, September 26, 1945
The folk music of Hungary and its
adjoining neighbors was the soul of Béla
Bartók’s creative voice throughout his
career. B eginning in 1906, and usually
in the company of his fellow composer
Zoltán Kodály, he annually roamed
the countryside, painstakingly noting
down or recording on a primitive Edison
recording machine the melodies he heard
the peasants sing. Like other nationalist
composers in other lands, Bartók
believed that the future of a distinctive
Hungarian music lay in recovering its
authentic past before the modern world
swept it away forever.
The town where Bartók was born lay on
the border of Romania, and in fact today
it falls within Romanian territory. And so
the collection of Romanian folk melodies
became an early passion; eventually
Bartók was to transcribe some 3500
authentic Romanian folk tunes. In 1915
he took seven Romanian fiddle tunes and
arranged them as Rumanian Folk Dances
for piano solo, then in 1917 transformed
them into the version we hear tonight for
string orchestra.
The suite comprises seven very brief
dances: “Stick Dance,” “Waistband
Dance,” “On the Spot,” “Hornpipe
Dance,” “Rumanian Polka” and two
concluding “Quick Dances.” Played
one after another without pause, they
last just six minutes. Most are vivacious
JA N – F E B 2018 / OV E R T U R E
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