Philadelphia Orchestra's Global Concert Series Continues

The Orchestra has two additional transmissions scheduled for the remainder of the season on May 3, and May 16, 2008.

The April 10 concert offers a program of big music for dreamers, on earth and in outer space. Violin sensation Nikolaj Znaider joins Philadelphia favorite Vladimir Jurowski to present the incomparable beautiful Brahms's Violin Concerto. Music from Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey completes the program, including an eerily beautiful work by György Ligeti, plus the grandfather of all space music, Richard Strauss's monumental tone poem about life, existence, and everything else, Also sprach Zarathustra.

Schools participating in the April 10 multi-cast range from large state universities such as the University of Colorado and Texas A & M University, to smaller state universities and community colleges such as Valley City State University in North Dakota and Montgomery County Community College in Pennsylvania.

Global Concert Series transmissions provide the audience with an up-close look at the musicians and conductor, in views not seen by live audiences. The live concert is transmitted using seven high definition cameras installed in Verizon Hall at The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia. The transmissions are hosted by Margie Smith, who brings live backstage commentary and interviews with conductors and musicians to concertgoers around the world. Off-site audiences are encouraged to ask questions of the performers before the concert and during intermission via e-mail, instant messenger, and text message.

The Philadelphia Orchestra is the first major orchestra to transmit live concerts to multiple large screen venues on college and university campuses. Its Global Concert Series, begun in September 2007, is made possible through a partnership among the Orchestra, the Internet2 Consortium, and the presenting schools.

The Global Concert Series uses a high-speed and high bandwidth network available to the Orchestra through the Internet2 network to send the audio and video stream to large screen venues at organizations connected to the Internet2 network. Internet2 is a non-profit consortium of over 200 universities who serve as hubs to connect thousands of schools to a high-speed advanced network that allows advanced applications and technologies for research and higher education. The Philadelphia Orchestra accesses this network through MAGPI, the Internet2 network hub of the University of Pennsylvania since 1999. Participating institutions are required to be connected to the Internet2 network and must meet additional technical and equipment criteria.

The Philadelphia Orchestra has recently been engaged in a number of initiatives designed to explore new and creative means of distributing the Orchestra's music outside of conventional concerts in its home hall, including an Online Music Store and podcasting, in addition to traditional radio broadcasts on National Public Radio and a recording contract with Ondine Records. The Philadelphia Orchestra boasts an extraordinary record of media firsts. It was the first symphonic orchestra to make electrical recordings (1925), the first to perform its own commercially sponsored radio broadcast (1929), the first to perform on the soundtrack of a feature film (Paramount's The Big Broadcast of 1937), the first to appear on a national television broadcast (1948), and the first major orchestra to give a live cybercast on the internet (1997).

Born in Moscow and a son of conductor Mikhail Jurowski, Vladimir Jurowski began his musical studies at the Music College of the Moscow Conservatory. In 1990 he moved with his family to Germany where he continued his studies at the music academies of Dresden and Berlin, studying conducting with Rolf Reuter and vocal coaching with Semion Skigin.

In January 2001 Mr. Jurowski became music director of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera and in 2003 was appointed principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic and a member of the Russian National Orchestra Conductor Collegium. In 2005 he was appointed principal guest conductor of the Russian National Orchestra, and last year he became a principal artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Mr. Jurowski became the London Philharmonic's principal conductor last September. During recent seasons he made debuts with such orchestras as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Oslo Philharmonic, the Russian National Orchestra, as well as the Pittsburgh Symphony. He made his Philadelphia Orchestra debut in October 2005. Mr. Jurowski's recent and future symphonic engagements include concerts with the London Philharmonic, the Dresden Staatskapelle, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Royal Concertgebouw, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.

Mr. Jurowski's operatic highlights have included Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades at the Metropolitan Opera, Wagner's Parsifal and Berg's Wozzeck at the Welsh National Opera, Prokofiev's War and Peace at the Opera National de Paris, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin at La Scala Milan, as well as Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Rossini's La Cenerentola, and Verdi's Otello and Macbeth at Glyndebourne Opera. This season Mr. Jurowski returned to the Metropolitan Opera to lead a new production of Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel.

Jurowski's discography includes the premiere recording of the cantata Exile by Giya Kancheli for ECM, L'etoile du Nord by Meyerbeer for Naxos-Marco Polo, Werther by Massenet for BMG, and recently released live recordings of works by Rachmaninoff, Mark Anthony Turnage and Tchaikovsky on the London Philharmonic's own label. Mr. Jurowski's recordings with the Russian National Orchestra include Tchaikovsky's Suite No. 3, Stravinsky's Divertimento from Le Baiser de la fée, and Shostakovich's Symphony Nos. 1 and 6 on PentaTone Classics. Vladimir Jurowski's appearance is made possible by Margaret and Eugene Ormandy Guest Conductor Fund.

Violinist Nikolaj Znaider regularly appears with the world's leading orchestras including the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the London Symphony, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, and the Cleveland Symphony. He has collaborated with such conductors as Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Myung Whun Chung, Colin Davis, Charles Dutoit, Valery Gergiev, Mariss Jansons, Neeme Järvi, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Yuri Temirkanov. He made his Philadelphia Orchestra debut in March 2000.

In recital and chamber music performances, Mr. Znaider has appeared with Mr. Barenboim, Leif Ove Andsnes, Yuri Bashmet, Yefim Bronfman, Lynn Harrell, Lang Lang, and Pinchas Zukerman. His recent recording of the complete piano trios of Mozart with Mr. Barenboim and Kyril Zlotnikov has just been released on EMI Classics. A RCA Red Seal recording artist, Mr. Znaider's latest recording is of the Beethoven and Mendelssohn violin concertos with the Israel Philharmonic under Mr. Mehta. He recently recorded the complete works for violin and piano of Brahms with Mr. Bronfman. His other recordings include the violin concertos of Prokofiev and Glazunov with the Bavarian Radio Symphony and Mariss Jansons and Bravo, an album of Romantic violin music which was named as Editor's Choice in Gramophone Magazine.

Born in Denmark to Polish-Israeli parents, Mr. Znaider studied with Boris Kushnir. Also passionate about music education, he is founder and artistic director of the Nordic Music Academy, an annual summer summer school.

Mr. Znaider plays the "Kreisler" Guarnerius del Gesu 1741 violin, which is on extended loan to him by The Royal Danish Theater through the generosity of the Velux Foundations and the Knud Højgaard Foundation. The Philadelphia Orchestra's Internet2 multicasts are made possible through the generous support of the Joseph and Marie Field Foundation; the Neubauer Family Foundation Fund for Audience Development, Media, and Technology; and the donors to the Capital Technology Fund of The Philadelphia Orchestra. -- www.philorch.org