 
April 2008
Welcome to Spring and Summer 2008! Mine is a busy one making great music with great musicians and, with good fortune, perhaps you in the audience.
Spring, for me, starts in Germany and the Göttingen International Handel Festival, where I’ve been Music Director since 1991. The Festival is the oldest festival for baroque music in the world. The first Festival took place in 1920 and triggered a movement that was to go down in music history as the “Göttingen Handel Renaissance”. This season’s staged opera is Orlando and the complete Festival schedule involves musicians from throughout the world.
In 2006, the Festival created its own orchestra, the Festspiel Orchester Göttingen (FOG). Their first recording – Solomon on the Carus label (Amazon.com) – was deemed “Superb” by Goldberg magazine. This summer Carus will record Handel’s oratorio Samson and his masque Acis and Galatea in an unusual arrangement by Mendelssohn. They should be out in time for Christmas.
Following the Festival, I’m off to conduct a Shakespeare program with the Atlanta Symphony. That program will include arias from Berlioz: Beatrice and Benedict; excerpts from both Gounod and Prokovief's Romeo and Juliet; and a suite from the Sibelius Tempest as well as selections from Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate and excerpts from Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Then it’s off to Gothenburg, Sweden for Rameau, Handel and Bach with countertenor Daniel Taylor, after which I reunite with the Göttingen forces for a brief German tour of Samson to Dresden, Hanover, and Halle. There is a short respite before my annual pilgrimage to Aspen and the Aspen Music Festival and School. High up in the mountains it will be a great change of scene and repertoire for me. I will conduct a largely student orchestra in a program consisting of the Purcell: Suite from ‘Abdelazar’; Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 25 with John O’Conor; Elgar: Wand of Youth Suite No. 2; and Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. What fun it is to do some teaching!
Then it’s home to California for about 10 days before yet another change of scenery, repertoire and tasks at the Oregon Bach Festival. In addition to master classes I am delighted to work with Sarah Chang again, on a program that includes Vivaldi’s Four Seasons; Respighi’s Ancient Airs and Dances; and Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Suite. After that I’m off to the Music Academy of the West for Messiaen’s Un Sourire; Mozart’s “Linz” Symphony, Ibert’s Hommage à Mozart; and Schumann’s “Spring” Symphony.
I look forward to the following week, the first of two visits this year with the Cleveland Orchestra. The summer visit finds me at the Blossom Music Festival July 26 and 27 with two programs. The first includes Weber: ‘Oberon’ Overture; Foote: A Night Piece; Sir Arthur Sullivan’s festive Masquerade from ‘The Merchant of Venice’; and Mendelssohn’s delightful Incidental Music from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which includes the famous Wedding March, and featuring Drew Carey as narrator. Won’t that be fun?
The second program with Cleveland is an all-baroque “Grand Tour” program of Vivaldi’s Concerto for Strings “alla rustica” and Concerto for 2 trumpets; Haydn’s Symphony No. 30 “Allelujah”; Mouret’s Rondeau from Suite No. 1 in D; a suite from Leclair’s Scylla et Glaucus and Handel’s Water Music Suites in G and D.
After this I am taking August for some “R&R” in Scotland and California.
Then it’s the autumn - but more on that later. Suffice it to say that it is all about visiting with new and old friends, from the opening of the Philharmonia Baroque season to a residency at Juilliard, and engagements in St. Paul, Atlanta, Cleveland, St. Louis, Chicago, Portland (Oregon), Milwaukee, San Diego, Nashville, and Newcastle (UK). For more details, see here.
Have a wonderful spring and summer, and if you are at a performance please remember to come back and say hello.
Nic McGegan |
