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JoAnn Falletta
Music Director, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
Biography
Few artists are as important to the fabric of their communities as JoAnn Falletta. Acclaimed by The New York Times as "one of the finest conductors of her generation", she serves as the Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. An effervescent and exuberant figure on the podium, she has been praised by The Washington Post as having "Toscanini's tight control over ensemble, Walter's affectionate balancing of inner voices, Stokowski's gutsy showmanship, and a controlled frenzy worthy of Bernstein." Both on and off the podium, she is a vibrant ambassador for music and an inspiring artistic leader.
Maestro Falletta's 2007/08 season with the Buffalo Philharmonic will be a prolific recording season, with the Orchestra recording four CDs and releasing two new discs on the Naxos label, including a world premiere recording of John Corigliano's Mr. Tambourine Man, based on the poems of Bob Dylan, and the international release of a disc of the works of Ottorino Respighi. Falletta, who has established a reputation for conducting artistically important, but seldom-heard works, is embarking on a multi-year recording project of the lost works of Marcel Tyberg, the brilliant Italian composer and Holocaust victim. The first release in this series will be Tyberg's Symphony No. 3. Other works to be recorded this season include discs of the music of Franz Schubert and Richard Strauss, both on the Naxos label, and a Classical Christmas release on the Orchestra's Beau Fleuve label. Continuing to raise the BPO's national and international prominence, Ms. Falletta will once again lead the orchestra in a number of concerts to be broadcast nationally on NPR's Performance Today and Symphony Cast and international broadcasts through the European Broadcasting Union.
Ms. Falletta is the recipient of many of the most prestigious conducting awards, including the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award for exceptionally gifted American conductors, the coveted Stokowski Competition, and the Toscanini, Ditson and Bruno Walter Awards for conducting. She has received nine awards from ASCAP for creative programming, as well as the American Symphony Orchestra League's prestigious John S. Edwards Award. She was named Buffalo's most influential community leader and Buffalo and Erie County's Artist of the Year. Falletta received a 2006 Grammy nomination for Eventide by Kenneth Fuchs, from the CD, An American Place (Naxos, American Classics). The album is one of over 40 in Maestro Falletta's full discography. In addition to her recordings with the BPO and two anticipated recordings with the VSO, Ms. Falletta's current projects include her first recording with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for the Naxos label, featuring the violin concertos on Dohnanyi, with soloist Michael Ludwig. Ms. Falletta received her undergraduate degree from the Mannes School of Music in New York, and her master's and doctorate degrees from The Juilliard School.
For more information about Maestro Falletta, visit www.joannfalletta.com. |
