  Note: For printed programs, please use the text below, as written. If further editing is required, please consult Genevieve Spielberg Inc. Full Bio Condensed Bio |
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JoAnn Falletta Conductor Full Length Biography Few artists are as important to the fabric of their communities as JoAnn Falletta. 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. 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.
Since stepping up to the podium as Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in the fall of 1999, Maestro Falletta has been credited with bringing the Philharmonic to a new level of national and international prominence. Under her direction, the Buffalo Philharmonic returned to recording, releasing 12 discs on the NAXOS label over the course of 10 years, earning two Grammy Awards and five Grammy nominations, and making the BPO one of the leading orchestras for the Naxos label and one of the most frequently recorded orchestras in the country. Last season, she led the BPO in its first multi-city tour since 1988, embarking on the artistically and financially successful five city “Florida Friends Tour” in March 2010. In 2004, the BPO performed to critical acclaim at Carnegie Hall in New York City, renewing an association with Carnegie where the BPO had performed twenty-two times in the past. Just before the beginning of this season, JoAnn and the BPO followed up on the double-Grammy award winning recording of Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man with the release of John Corigliano’s The Red Violin featuring BPO Concertmaster Michael Ludwig as soloist and a second disc of the music of Ernö von Dohnányi, both on the Naxos label. The orchestra also released a live recording of works of Rachmaninoff & Rossini, which were featured on their Florida tour. The diamond anniversary season will see the release of the BPO’s much anticipated first disc in a multi-year recording project of the music of holocaust victim Marcel Tyberg, whose scores were rediscovered in 2005 in the care of a Buffalo doctor who had preserved them since escaping from Europe during the war, and a recording of romantic works of Josef Suk, including the Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra played by Michael Ludwig. A two-week Gershwin Festival in November will be recorded, and released on the Naxos label, to be followed by a disc of the music of Duke Ellington. In special recognition of the 75thanniversary, the orchestra will release a five-disc set of music from the BPO vaults that will showcase the sound of the orchestra with eight of its music directors, including Ms. Falletta, William Steinberg, Josef Krips, Lukas Foss, Michael Tilson Thomas, Julius Rudel, Semyon Bychkov, and Maximiano Valdes. This season, the BPO will once again be featured on national broadcasts of NPR’s Performance Today and SymphonyCast, and international broadcasts through the European Broadcasting Union. The BPO is the only major orchestra to be featured twice on NPR’s From the Top. Other recent broadcasts include a national PBS televised special, Bernstein’s “Ode to Freedom” featuring Ms. Falletta as host, and a PBS special of the Four Seasons with Mark O’Connor and Catherine Cho.
Ms. Falletta has been invited to guest conduct many of the world’s finest symphony orchestras. Highlights of her recent and upcoming international guest conducting appearances include the Haifa Symphony ( Israel), Goettingen Symphony (Germany), Orquesta Sinfonica de Chile(Chile), Ulster Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Orchestra, National Philharmonic of Lithuania, Orquestra de Extremadura (Spain), Warsaw National Philharmonic, Kraków Philharmonic, Orchestra National de Belgique, Seoul Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic in Manchester, Ensemble Kanazawa (Japan), Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, Orchestra of Asturias (Spain), Rotterdam Philharmonic, Orchestre National De Lyon, Northwest German Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Lisbon Metropolitan Symphony. She has guest conducted over 100 orchestras in North America, including the orchestras of Philadelphia, Detroit, Montreal, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Houston, Rochester, Utah, Edmonton, Quebec and the National Symphony. Ms. Falletta’s summer activities have taken her to numerous music festivals including Aspen, Tanglewood, Hollywood Bowl, Grand Teton, Wolf Trap, Eastern Music, Cabrillo, OK Mozart International, Lanaudiere, Peter Britt, Breckenridge, Brevard and Interlochen, among others. She 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, as well as the American Symphony Orchestra League’s prestigious John S. Edwards Award. She is an ardent champion of music of our time, introducing over 400 works by American composers, including more than 80 world premieres. Hailing her as a “leading force for the music of our time”, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers honored JoAnn Falletta with her 10th ASCAP award in 2008 in recognition of her work as a conductor, communicator, recording artist, audience builder, champion of American composers and distinguished musical citizen. Ms. Falletta serves as a Member of the National Council on the Arts, the advisory body of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Falletta is a strong advocate and mentor for young professional and student musicians. She has led seminars for women conductors for the League of American Orchestras and has great success working with outstanding young musicians, guest conducting the orchestras of many of the top conservatories, including Curtis, Juilliard, and Mannes and summer programs at Interlochen, Round Top and Brevard, among others. Falletta’s recording schedule for this season includes two recordings with the London Symphony for Naxos, Jack Gallagher’s One Movement Symphony to be released in September, and Ken Fuch’s An American Rhapsody. Maestro Falletta’s growing discography, which currently includes nearly 60 titles, consists of recordings with the London Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Virginia Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony, Long Beach Symphony, Czech National Symphony, Philadelphia Philharmonia and Women’s Philharmonic, among others. In addition to the two Grammy Awards and three Grammy Nominations for 2009, her most recent Schubert disc with the BPO received a 2010 Grammy nomination for best producer. She received her first Grammy nomination in 2006 for “Eventide” Concerto for English Horn, Harp, Percussion, and String Orchestra, by Kenneth Fuchs, from the CD An American Place (Naxos American Classics). Her 2007 recording of the music of Respighi and her 2003 recording of Griffes Orchestral Music, both on the Naxos label with the Buffalo Philharmonic, were selected as Editor’s Choice Recordings by Gramophone. In 2009, JoAnn and the BPO had two world premiere discs released on the Naxos label; Daron Hagen’s opera Shining Brow, based on the early years of Frank Lloyd Wright, and two “new” works by Franz Schubert, featuring the completion of Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony”, and a newly orchestrated transcription of Death and the Maiden. Other recent discs include her first recording with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for the Naxos label, featuring the violin concertos on Dohnányi, a second world premiere recording of the orchestral music of Kenneth Fuchs with the London Symphony, the music of Paul Schoenfield with the Prague Philharmonia, works of Aaron Copland with the BPO, and Borrowed Treasures, Ms. Falletta’s third disc of chamber music for guitar, featuring Ms. Falletta as guitarist.
Ms. Falletta made three recordings of works by women composers with the Women’s Philharmonic. Of special interest is her recording of works by Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, Lili Boulanger and Germaine Tailleferre, which received a “Best Classical Recording” award from the National Association of Independent Record Distributors and a “Most Creative Programming” award from Classic CD Magazine. Additional recordings feature music by Poulenc, Ravel, Moross, Shulamit Ran, Elinor Armer and John Luther Adams. Ms. Falletta’s radio and television credits include numerous appearances on NPR’s Performance Today, Fresh Air, and From the Top, WQXR, WNCN, CBS Sunday Morning, the Charlie Rose Show, the MacNeil Lehrer News Hour, BBC Radio, and several nationally televised performances on PBS including Live from Lincoln Center—Juilliard at 80, Seasons of Life with Mark O’Connor and the BPO, and a special PBS TV documentary about music with Penn & Teller. In 2008-09, she led the BPO in its second appearance on NPR’s From the Top, and hosted a national PBS televised special, Bernstein’s “Ode to Freedom”. As a writer, Ms. Falletta has contributed articles to Symphony Magazine, the New York Concert Review, the Virginian Pilot, Portfolio Magazine and Traffic East Magazine. Ms. Falletta’s first poetry book, Love Letters to Music, was published in the fall of 2004. In addition to her current posts with the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Virginia Symphony, Ms. Falletta has held the positions of artistic advisor to the Honolulu Symphony, music director of the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, associate conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and music director of the Denver Chamber Orchestra, the Queens Philharmonic and the Women’s Philharmonic. Ms. Falletta received her undergraduate degree from the Mannes School of Music in New York, her master’s and doctorate degrees from The Juilliard School, and in addition, has been awarded eleven honorary doctorates. JoAnn Falletta Conductor Condensed Biography Few artists are as important to the fabric of their communities as JoAnn Falletta. 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. 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.
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, as well as the American Symphony Orchestra League’s prestigious John S. Edwards Award. She is an ardent champion of music of our time, introducing over 400 works by American composers, including more than 80 world premieres. Hailing her as a “leading force for the music of our time”, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers honored JoAnn Falletta with her 10th ASCAP award in 2008. Ms. Falletta serves as a Member of the National Council on the Arts, the advisory body of the National Endowment for the Arts. Since stepping up to the podium as Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in the fall of 1999, Maestro Falletta has been credited with bringing the Philharmonic to a new level of national and international prominence. Under her direction, the Buffalo Philharmonic, which is celebrating its 75 anniversary this season, returned to recording, releasing 12 discs on the NAXOS label over the course of 10 years, earning two Grammy Awards and five Grammy nominations, and making the BPO one of the leading orchestras for the Naxos label and one of the most frequently recorded orchestras in the country. Last season, she led the BPO in its first multi-city tour since 1988, embarking on the artistically and financially successful five city “Florida Friends Tour” in March 2010. In 2004, the BPO performed to critical acclaim at Carnegie Hall in New York City, renewing an association with Carnegie where the BPO had performed twenty-two times in the past.
This season, JoAnn and the BPO followed up on the double-Grammy award winning recording of Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man with the release of John Corigliano’s The Red Violin featuring BPO Concertmaster Michael Ludwig as soloist and a second disc of the music of Ernö von Dohnányi, both on the Naxos label. The orchestra also released a live recording of works of Rachmaninoff & Rossini, which were featured on their Florida tour. The diamond anniversary season will see the release of the BPO’s much anticipated first disc in a multi-year recording project of the music of holocaust victim Marcel Tyberg, , and a recording of romantic works of Josef Suk, including the Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra played by Michael Ludwig. A two-week Gershwin Festival in November will be recorded, and released on the Naxos label, to be followed by a disc of the music of Duke Ellington. In special recognition of the 75thanniversary, the orchestra will release a five-disc set of music from the BPO vaults that will showcase the sound of the orchestra with eight of its music directors, including Ms. Falletta, William Steinberg, Josef Krips, Lukas Foss, Michael Tilson Thomas, Julius Rudel, Semyon Bychkov, and Maximiano Valdes. 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, and in addition has been awarded eleven honorary doctorates.
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