This is the first concert of the 2013-14 season.

Man­itoba Cham­ber Orches­tra

Anne Man­son, Music Dir­ector and Con­ductor
Karl Stobbe, Con­cert­mas­ter
West­min­ster United Church, 11 Septem­ber 2013

http://www.themco.ca

Jan Lisiecki, piano

Béla Bartók Romanian Folk Dances, Sz. 56

Philip Glass Sym­phony No. 3

Edvard Grieg Piano Con­certo, in A minor, Op. 16 — arr. Oesterle

Jan Lisiecki

Con­cert spon­sor / Investors Group
Print media spon­sor / Win­nipeg Free Press
Radio media spon­sors / CBC Radio 2 98.3, CBC Radio One 990,
Espace musique 89,9 and Golden West Radio

“Jan Lisiecki is “a pian­ist who makes every note count”

In a recent review, a New York Times critic went on to describe Jan Lisiecki’s style as “pristine, lyr­ical and intel­li­gent.” It was the ‘every note’ part that hit home: it’s exactly what any­one who atten­ded Jan’sMCO debut remembers!

It’s hard to pin this busy boy down. Our ori­ginal Septem­ber date had to be moved as the young vir­tu­oso was needed in Lon­don, Eng­land. It seems he has won yet another award — the kind you have to accept in person.

In 2011, Jan dazzled us with Chopin; this time it will be a spe­cial arrange­ment of Grieg’s A minor piano con­certo (Op. 16) by Cana­dian com­poser Michael Oesterle.

Also, if you’ve been enjoy­ing the MCO’s new Philip Glass CD (named ‘Record­ing of the Month’ by MusicWeb Inter­na­tional), you’ll love a live per­form­ance of the Sym­phony No. 3 at this concert!

Grieg, via Oesterle

Jan Lisiecki’s usual rep­er­toire is for much lar­ger ensembles, but one work in par­tic­u­lar appealed to Music Dir­ector Anne Man­son. We asked Cana­dian com­poser Michael Oes­terle to work on an arrange­ment of Edvard Grieg’s Piano Con­certo in A Minor (Op. 16) for cham­ber orchestra.

He was inter­ested in the pro­ject, and before we knew it, another unique MCO solu­tion was in the works!

The con­cert begins at 7:30 pm on Septem­ber 11th in West­min­ster United Church, 745 West­min­ster at Mary­land. Tick­ets are $28 for adults, $26 for seni­ors and $8 for stu­dents, includ­ing GST, atMcNally Robin­son, the West End Cul­tural Centre (586 Ellice at Sherbrook), Organic Planet (877 West­min­ster Ave) or MCO’s Tick­et­line (204.783.7377).

Jan Lisiecki

“The New York Times has called 18-year-old Cana­dian Jan Lisiecki “a pian­ist who makes every note count.” Hav­ing signed an exclus­ive record­ing agree­ment with Deutsche Gram­mo­phon at the age of 15, his debut record­ing on the label fea­tures Mozart’s Piano Con­cer­tos K. 466 & 467 with the Sym­phonieorchester des Bay­erischen Rund­funks under Chris­tian Zacharias. Nom­in­ated for a Juno Award for clas­sical album of the year 2013, the CD was described by the New York Times as “pristine, lyr­ical and intel­li­gent … dir­ect, unmannered and fresh.” Lisiecki’s secondDG album, released in April 2013, fea­tures Chopin’s Études Op. 10 and Op. 25.

In 2012, Jan was named UNICEF Ambas­sador to Canada, after being a National Youth Rep­res­ent­at­ive since 2008. This year, recog­nized for his poetic and mature play­ing, Lisiecki has been awar­ded the Leonard Bern­stein Award of the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival.

2013 per­form­ance high­lights include Lisiecki’s debut with Clau­dio Abbado and Orches­tra Moz­art, his BBC Proms debut with Ant­o­nio Pap­pano and the Orches­tra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia at Royal Albert Hall in Lon­don, and his debut with the Phil­adelphia Orches­tra under Yan­nick Nézet-Séguin at the Bravo Vail Fest­ival. Jan’s offi­cial sub­scrip­tion debut with the Phil­adelphia Orches­tra is sched­uled for April 2014 where he will be per­form­ing three dif­fer­ent Moz­art con­cer­tos in one week. The 2013/14 sea­son includes his debut with Orches­tra Fil­ar­mon­ica della Scala in Mil­ano under Daniel Hard­ing, return engage­ments to Orchestre de Paris, debuts with the Ton­halle Orchester Zürich and NHK Sym­phony in Tokyo, and recital debuts at Santa Cecilia in Rome, in San Fran­cisco, and in London’s Wig­more Hall. Since the 2012/13 sea­son Jan has been a mem­ber of Konzer­thaus Dortmund’s series ‘Junge Wilde.’

High­lights of past sea­sons included Lisiecki’s New York Phil­har­monic sub­scrip­tion debut under David Zin­man, the sea­son open­ing con­cert of Orchestre de Paris under Paavo Järvi, and his debut with the BBC Sym­phony under Jiří Bělohlávek. Lisiecki has played at Avery Fisher Hall, Carne­gie Hall, the Bar­bican, Salle Pleyel, Ton­halle Zürich, Konzer­thaus Vienna, and Sun­tory Hall. He has sub­sti­tuted for Martha Argerich and Nel­son Freire, and has shared the stage with Yo-Yo Ma, Pin­chas Zuker­man, and Emanuel Ax. He has per­formed in Armenia, Bel­gium, Brazil, China, Eng­land, France, Ger­many, Greece, Guatem­ala, Italy, Japan, Korea, Poland, Scot­land, Sweden, Switzer­land, the USA, and through­out Canada.

Lisiecki’s live per­form­ances of both Chopin piano con­cer­tos with Sin­fonia Var­so­via and Howard Shel­ley were released in 2010 by the Chopin Insti­tute in Warsaw. The record­ing received the Diapason Découverte award in May 2010; Diapason describes Jan as “an unmannered vir­tu­oso already with virile and, above all, irres­ist­ibly nat­ural play­ing.” The BBC Music Magazine com­men­ted that “even in a crowded CD cata­logue, this refresh­ingly unhyped debut release is one to celebrate.”

Jan’s per­form­ances have been broad­cast on CBC Canada, BBC Radio, Aus­trian Radio, French Radio, Ger­man Radio, Lux­em­bourg Radio, and Pol­ish Radio, as well as on French Tele­vi­sion 3 and on TV 1 and 2 in Poland.He was fea­tured in the CBC‘Next!’ series as one of the most prom­ising young artists in Canada, and in the 2009 CBC doc­u­ment­ary about his life: ‘The Reluct­ant Prodigy.’

Upon the school board’s recom­mend­a­tion Jan was accel­er­ated four grades and gradu­ated from high school in Janu­ary 2011. Since Septem­ber 2011 he has been study­ing for a Bach­elor of Music at the Glenn Gould School of Music in Toronto, Canada.”

…from the MCO website.