Author archive for leonard slatkin

  • Slatkin to Serve as Artistic Consultant to Las Vegas Philharmonic

    February 15, 2024

    The Las Vegas Philharmonic announced today that Leonard Slatkin will be the orchestra’s artistic consultant beginning with the 2024-25 season, advising the organization on programming decisions.

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  • FEBRUARY 2024

    Although many people think of St. Louis as being in the southern part of the country, we can have some winter weather close to that of Buffalo, New York. Such was the case in the middle of January, when the temperatures dipped below zero; thankfully, the snow was minimal.

    All bundled up, I began a two-week stay with my old band, the SLSO. Many things are different this year, not the least of which is that Powell Hall is under renovation and the orchestra has had to relocate. They play in two venues, one of them being the Stifel Theatre, the orchestra’s former home until 1968, when the R.K.O. St. Louis Theatre was converted from a movie palace into one of the finest concert halls in the country.

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  • St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Jazz Festival

    January 8, 2024

    The SLSO and Slatkin reunite for a three-concert festival exploring the intersection of jazz and classical music. Each program ends with a work by Gershwin. Fittingly, Slatkin and the orchestra are celebrating the 50th anniversary of their acclaimed recordings of Gershwin’s works on Vox Records, which have recently been re-released by Naxos.

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  • JANUARY 2024

    And a joyous New Year to all of you! Hopefully 2023 ended on a high note.

    While most people head home for the holidays, Cindy and I usually go on an extended vacation. For the most part, we travel to places that are somewhat remote. Past trips have taken us to Morocco, the Galapagos, and the Amazon. This time we explored Tanzania.

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  • “Maestro”: Bernstein Comes to the Big Screen

    At several points during my viewing of this film, one question kept nagging at me: Who is the target audience? To answer that query, it is necessary to understand the content of this movie.

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  • Slatkin’s New Book Available for Pre-Sale

    December 8, 2023

    Leonard is pleased to announce that his latest book, Eight Symphonic Masterworks of the Twentieth Century: A Study Guide for Conductors, will be published by Rowman & Littlefield on March 5, 2024. The essays provide an almost bar-by-bar analysis of the scores, detailing the decisions the conductor must make to bring these works to life.

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  • DECEMBER 2023

    To say that November was a jam-packed month would be an understatement. With the middle portion of a six-week concert tour in full swing, I realized that no two works would be repeated during this trip. Only one of them was new to me, however, and as I explained in last month’s journal entry, The Fountains of Rome became an old friend during the first stop back in October.

    Continuing in Spain, I moved on from Valencia to Madrid. In times’ past, the country, in general, was not a pleasant place to make music. Its resident orchestras were undisciplined and did not possess the musical values I was used to in other parts of the world. That has changed drastically over the past fifteen years or so, with exciting and vibrant music-making now taking place throughout Spain, even in smaller cities.

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  • Elite Recordings for Vox Re-Released

    November 29, 2023

    Naxos has released audiophile editions of two acclaimed Vox recordings conducted by Leonard Slatkin and featuring the first and third symphonies of Rachmaninov. Karl Nehring of Classical Candor characterized the albums as “excellent performances, excellently recorded, making them eminently recommendable for fans of these gorgeously tuneful symphonies.”

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  • Rave Reviews in Spain

    November 9, 2023

    Music critics offered positive assessments of Leonard’s concerts in Valencia and Madrid. Writing for Scherzo, respected writer and composer Tomás Marco characterized Slatkin as “an interesting and reliable maestro who accompanied Achúcarro very well and in the second part made an excellent version of Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1.”

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  • Slatkin in Spain, Poland, Ireland, and France

    November 1, 2023

    Leonard is conducting in Europe this fall, with concerts in Spain, Poland, Ireland, and France. Program highlights include Resphigi’s Pines of Rome in Valencia, Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1 in Madrid, Gershwin’s American in Paris in Katowice, Copland’s Symphony No. 3 and Vaughan Williams’s Sea Symphony in Dublin, and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in Lyon.

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