Home for the Holidays

Profiles

John Morris Russell Leonard Slatkin, Music Director

Neeme Järvi, Music Director Emeritus

POP SERIES Friday, December 21, 2012 at 10:45 a.m. & 8 p.m.

Saturday, December 22, 2012 at 3 p.m. & 8 p.m.

Sunday, December 23, 2012 at 3 p.m. in Orchestra Hall John Morris Russell, conductor Kisma Jordan, soprano* Andover High School Choir,# Bruce Snyder, director Grosse Pointe South High School Pointe Singers,^ Christopher Pratt, director Steven Amundson Robert L. Shaw

Angel’s Dance Many Moods of Christmas, Suite IV Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light The First Nowell O Little Town of Bethlehem I Saw Three Ships Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly # ^

Antonio Vivaldi/Traditional A Winter Miracle arr. Berens Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard arr. Jerry Brubaker Johann Sebastian Bach orch. Charles Gounod David Willcocks Adolphe-Charles Adam arr. Snyder

The Polar Express “Ave Maria” (Meditation)* Ding Dong! Merrily on High # ^ O Holy Night*

I N T ER M IS SION

Arthur Harris

We Three Kings

Felix Mendelssohn

Elijah, Op.70, No.29: “He watching over Israel” # ^

George Frideric Handel

Judas Maccabeus, HWV 63: “See the Conquering Hero Comes” # ^

George Frideric Handel orch. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Georges Bizet

“Hallelujah” chorus from Messiah # ^ “Farandole” from L’Arlésienne Suite No. 2

Leroy Anderson Sleigh Ride arr. Julie Spangler Sir Edward Elgar

William Schermerhorn and Westley Whatley

arr. Steven Reineke

arr. John Finnegan

Enigma Variations, Op.36 IX. “Nimrod” Moderato I Believe # ^

“Go Tell It on the Mountain” * # ^ Christmas Singalong

This Pops series program is generously sponsored by

The DSO can be heard on the DSO, Chandos, London, Naxos, RCA and Mercury Record labels.

DSO.ORG

At the close of the 2011-12 season, John Morris Russell completed his first full season as Conductor of the Cincinnati Pops.

Consistently winning international praise for RUSSELL his extraordinary music-making and visionary leadership, he was recently named Music Director of the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra in Hilton Head, South Carolina. He completed his role as Music Director of the Windsor Symphony Orchestra in Ontario, Canada at the end of the 2011-12 season, whereupon he was named that orchestra’s first Conductor Laureate.

No stranger to Cincinnati audiences, for many seasons Russell served as Associate Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. He was recognized for his innovative programming and commitment to attracting new and diverse audiences to orchestral music, creating the Classical Roots: Spiritual Heights series, which brought the music of African-American composers and performers to thousands of listeners in area churches, and was also the co-creator of the Christmas spectacular, Home for the Holidays.

As a guest conductor, Russell has worked with many of North America’s most distinguished ensembles, leading Canadian orchestras that include Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Victoria, KitchenerWaterloo and Orchestra London. In the US he has conducted the orchestras of Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Dallas, Louisville, Miami’s New World Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, Colorado Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, New York Pops, New York City Ballet, New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, and the Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Music Festival.

2011-12 marked Russell’s 11th and final season as Music Director of the Windsor Symphony Orchestra. While at Windsor he fostered a decade of unprecedented artistic growth and invigorated the musical life of the Windsor-Essex region. Under Russell’s baton, the WSO made 17 national broadcasts on CBC Radio 2.

Russell has also served as associate conductor of the Savannah Symphony Orchestra, director of the orchestral program at Vanderbilt University, and music director with the College Light Opera Company in PERFORM ANCE / VOL . X XI / WINTER 201 3

15

Falmouth, Massachusetts. He received a Master of Music degree in conducting from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in music from Williams College in Massachusetts. He has also studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado, and the Pierre Monteux School for Conductors in Hancock, Maine.

Kisma Jordan

Kisma Jordan, soprano, a native of Detroit, is emerging as one of the country’s most luminous vocal talents.

On the opera stage as well as in concert and JORDAN recital, she has been recognized for her soul-stirring communicative ability and “shimmering soprano voice,” as noted by The New York Times. She has won top prizes in The Fritz and Lavinia Jensen Vocal Competition, The Belcanto Vocal Scholarship, The Baltimore Music Club and The National Association of Teachers of Singing. As a semi-finalist of the 2010 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, she has been privileged to receive gracious Education Fund Awards from the Met. In 2011, Jordan was awarded the A. Grace Lee Mims Vocal Scholarship by the Cleveland Foundation. She also made solo debuts with the Omaha Symphony Orchestra as part of their Masterworks Series, followed by the Louisiana Philharmonic. Her most recent performances include Nedda in Repertory Opera Theatre of Washington’s production of Pagliacci, and Anne Trulove at the Baltimore Lyric Opera in their production of The Rake’s Progress. This fall, Jordan performed the Vier Letze lieder (The Four Last Songs) with the Peabody Symphony Orchestra as part of her award as winner of the Sylvia L. Green Voice Competition.

Jordan began her undergraduate studies at Kentucky State University where she was awarded a full academic and vocal music scholarship. Although not a vocal performance major upon entering KSU, her love of music, private voice studies, opera theatre experiences and concert choir activities proved too strong a passion to ignore. She earned the Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance in 2004, and now holds graduate degrees in vocal performance from Bowling Green State and most recently, Peabody Conservatory.

16

PERFORM ANCE / VOL . X XI / WINTER 201 3

Presented by

CLASSICAL

Celebration SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2013 ORCHESTRA HALL

DSO.ORG