Press Kit
Media Contact:
Sue Auclair, Sue Auclair Promotions
617-522-1394
sue@sueauclair.com
For Immediate Release:
September 30, 2011
Conductor Courtney Lewis Jets the Globe:
Boston, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Atlanta, Belfast and Dublin
Discovery Ensemble, Minnesota Orchestra, LA Philharmonic,
Ulster Orchestra, BBC, Atlanta Symphony and RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland
Boston’s Discovery Ensemble 2011 - 2012 Season Concerts Announced
First Boston Area Concert Coming Up Sunday, October 2 at Sanders
Boston, MA--Courtney Lewis, the 27-year-old Conductor and Music Director of Boston’s Discovery Ensemble, Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Associate Conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra has just announced this season’s concert program for Discovery Ensemble. While Lewis jets from coast to coast and continent to continent, he is jubilant at being able to achieve his lifelong passion for conducting great music with some of the world’s finest orchestras and at the same time conduct and oversee his own orchestra, Discovery Ensemble, based here in Boston.
“Things are great. I’m in LA at the moment . . . having a wonderful time working with the LA Phil,” says Courtney. “And I’m looking forward to heading to Boston for the October concert on the 2nd and our Discovery Ensemble recording session at WGBH’s radio studios on Monday, October 3rd.”
Courtney Lewis is quickly becoming recognized as one of today’s top emerging international talents. He is not only Founder and Music Director of Boston’s acclaimed Discovery Ensemble, a chamber orchestra with the mission of introducing inner-city school children to classical music while bringing new and unusual repertoire to established concert audiences, but was also recently promoted to Associate Conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra, where he regularly conducts Young People’s concerts, outdoor concerts, and other performances. With this orchestra this year, he will make his subscription debut and conduct a fully-staged production of Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel.
In November 2008 Lewis made his major American orchestra debut with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, leading a series of five concerts. He subsequently spent several weeks assisting Music Director David Robertson. In addition, he has also worked with the BBC Philharmonic as well as smaller groups including the Nash Ensemble. Recent engagements include a return to the St. Louis Symphony and successful debuts with the Ulster Orchestra and the New Hampshire Music Festival.
This past summer, Lewis made his debut at the Sewanee Music Festival and returned to the the British Isles and the Ulster Orchestra for a series of BBC Radio 3 invitation concerts including the New Generation Artists and Discovering Music series. Lewis will also appear with the Ulster Orchestra this fall, under the auspices of the newly formed Northern Ireland Opera as well as on the Ulster Orchestra’s main subscription series in spring of 2012. Other upcoming debuts include the RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and the Atlanta Symphony.
During the 2011/12 season Courtney will also serve as a Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He will conduct two sets of Los Angeles Philharmonic Neighborhood Concerts and work closely with Music Director Gustavo Dudamel. Courtney will also work with students in key Los Angeles Philharmonic education programs such as Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA).
Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Lewis attended the University of Cambridge, where he studied composition with Robin Holloway and clarinet with Dame Thea King, graduating at the top of his year with starred first class honors. After completing a Master’s Degree with a focus on the late music of György Ligeti, he attended the Royal Northern College of Music, where his teachers included Sir Mark Elder and Clark Rundell. He also completed a two-year tenure as a Zander Fellow with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, an intensive conducting apprenticeship under the ensemble’s music director, Benjamin Zander. In addition to his work with the Boston Philharmonic, he assisted Zander with the London Philharmonia, Toronto Symphony, Saint Louis Symphony and Símon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela.
About Discovery Ensemble’s 2011 - 2012 Season Opening Concert:
This year, Discovery Ensemble, Lewis’s highly-praised Boston chamber orchestra will be presenting a season of works by Britten, Martin, Beethoven, Ravel, Copland, Haydn, Anderson, Salonen, Debussy and Mozart in two of the finest concert halls in Boston, Sanders Theatre and Jordan Hall. In keeping with Discovery Ensemble tradition, Lewis and his Artistic Director David St. George have once again come up with a series of programs that successfully combine historic compositions with compelling and irresistible newer, but lesser known works, that completely open up the ear and the mind. The brilliant and impassioned musicians of Discovery Ensemble adore these powerful works--and often it’s these pieces that create the biggest “wow factor,” -- complete with standing ovations at Discovery Ensemble concerts.
The opening season concert on October 2nd spotlights Benjamin Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Frank Martin’s Six Monologues from “Jedermann” and Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Reserved seat tickets at $35, $28 and $20 are available now at www.discoveryensemble.com, at the Harvard Box office website [www.boxoffice.harvard.edu] or by calling 617-496-2222.
Tickets are also available at the Harvard Box Office Booth, located at 1350 Massachusetts Avenue in the Holyoke Center Arcade. Harvard Box Office hours are Tuesday through Sunday from 12:00 noon to 6:00 P.M. The box office is closed on Mondays and some holidays. Tickets for students and seniors with identification will be available at a discount of $10.00 in all price ranges. Season subscriptions at $94.00, $75.00 and $54.00 for all three concerts are also now available at www.DiscoveryEnsemble.com.
Benjamin Britten’s bewitching Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge waswritten to showcase the virtuosity of London’s leading string orchestra of the 1930s. and also to display his own youthful compositional virtuosity. Starting with Bridge’s sentimental, turn-of-the-century theme, the Variations run through a dizzying gamut of moods, forms, and national styles, from German to French to Italian to who knows what!
Frank Martin’s Six Monologues from “Jedermann” traces the deeply moving stages in the emotional and spiritual journey of a rich and arrogant man who, in agonizing fashion, resists the inevitability of his own death until he learns true wisdom in acceptance. This masterpiece by Switzerland’s greatest composer is still insufficiently known to music lovers. Baritone Christòpheren Nomura, one of America’s most compelling recitalists, will bring to the performance the urgency and personal communicative power that this unique work demands.
And, returning to earth after the mystical, transfigured close of the Martin Monologues, the concert closes with Beethoven’s eternally youthful Seventh Symphony. This dancing, athletic, overwhelmingly joyous work continues, even after two centuries, to be the most popular of all the Beethoven symphonies.
Discovery Ensemble 2011 - 2012 Season
Sun., October 2, 2011 at 3 PM; Sanders Theatre, Cambridge
[pre-concert discussion at 2 P.M.]
Britten: Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge
Martin: Six Monologues from “Jedermann,” Christopheren Nomura, baritone
Beethoven: Symphony No. 7
Tickets: $35, $28 and $20
Sun., November 6, 2011 at 3 PM; Sanders Theatre, Cambridge
[pre-concert discussion at 2:00 P.M.]
Ravel: Mother Goose Suite
Julian Anderson: Khorovod
Copland: Clarinet Concerto, William R. Hudgins, clarinet
Haydn: Symphony No. 90
Tickets: $35, $28 and $20
Fri., April 13, 2012 at 8 PM; Jordan Hall, Boston
[pre-concert discussion at 7:00 P.M.]
Beethoven: Leonore Overture No. 2
Salonen: Mania for Cello and Chamber Orchestra, Kacy Clopton, cello
Debussy: Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
Mozart: Symphony 39
Tickets: $35, $28 and $20
