On Friday, February 22, at 7:30 p.m. the University of Washington School of Music will mark a first in its history when Seattle Symphony joins the University Symphony in a side-by-side performance of Mahler’s majestic First Symphony, conducted by University Symphony Music Director Peter Erös.
Maestro Erös will begin the program with Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466, featuring the University Symphony and doctoral piano student Rie Ando. Seattle Symphony will join the University Symphony for Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in the second half of the program. The concert will take place at the University of Washington’s Meany Theater and is free and open to public.
“It will be both an honor and a lasting inspiration for our students to perform, side by side, with members of Seattle Symphony,” says Robin McCabe, Director of the School of Music. “This is certain to be an exciting collaboration and a milestone event in the life of the School.”
Peter Erös
Hungarian-American conductor Peter Erös was born in Budapest in 1932 and attended the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, where he studied composition with Zoltán Kodály, chamber music with Leo Weiner, and conducting with László Somogyi. In 1956, during the Hungarian Revolution, he emigrated to Holland. At age 27, Erös was named Associate Conductor of Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, a post he held for five years. While in Amsterdam, he assisted Otto Klemperer in opera productions for the Holland Festival. In the summers of 1960 and 1961, he served as a coach and assisted Hans Knappertsbusch at the Bayreuth Festival, and in 1961 he was assistant conductor to Ferenc Fricsay for the Salzburg Festival production of Mozart’s Idomeneo. He continued to assist Fricsay both in Salzburg and in Berlin with the RIAS Symphony Orchestra and Deutsche Grammaphon through 1964. In 1965, Erös came to the United States for the first time at the invitation of George Szell to work with him and the Cleveland Orchestra as a Kulas Foundation Fellow.
His principal appointments were as Music Director and Conductor of the Malmö Symphony Orchestra (1966–1969) in Sweden, the Australian Broadcasting Commission Orchestras (1967–1969, Sydney and Melbourne; 1975-79, Perth), the San Diego Symphony and La Jolla Chamber Orchestra (1971–1980), and the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra (1982–1989) in Denmark.
As a guest conductor, Erös appeared regularly with major symphony orchestras and opera companies on five continents, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm, Hamburg State Opera, the Hague Residentie Orchestra, and the Scottish National Orchestra, and made nine tours of South Africa. He received ASCAP awards in 1983 and 1985 for his programming of music by American composers.
Erös came to the University of Washington School of Music in 1989 as the Morrison Endowed Professor of Conducting and Music Director and Conductor of the University Symphony. He also taught conducting from 1960 to 1965 at the Amsterdam Conservatory, where his pupils included Hans Vonk, and served as Director of Orchestral and Operatic Activities at the Peabody Conservatory of Music from 1982 to 1985.
At the personal request of Richard Wagner’s granddaughter Friedelind, Erös led the first set of recordings of orchestral works by Friedelind’s father, Siegfried Wagner. Two discs were released on the Delysé label, featuring the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Erös: the Symphony in C and the tone poems Glück, Und wenn die Welt voll Teufel wär (Scherzo), Weltersteinspielung, and Sehnsucht. He also conducted the first recording of the opera Jesus Before Herod by Hungarian composer Gabriel von Wayditch (1888 -1969) with the San Diego Symphony.
Rie Ando
Rie Ando is a doctoral student at the UW School of Music, studying with Professor Craig Sheppard. A native of Japan, she began studying piano at the age of three and spent 19 years studying at the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, completing the children’s music program, high school program and eventually earning a bachelor’s degree of music in piano performance. She holds a master of music degree in piano performance from Western Washington University and also earned an artist's diploma from the International Workshop of Interpretation in Radzyn, Poland.
A resident of Washington State since 1997, Ando has performed recitals throughout the state as well as in Poland, Japan and California. Among Ando’s many honors, she was the 2005 recipient of the Helen Crowe Snelling Scholarship from the Seattle Musical Art Society, won the Gold County Piano Institute Competition in Nevada City, California; the Bellingham Music Club Competition; and the Western Concerto Competition. -- www.seattlesymphony.org
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