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Orchestral Works by Tomas Svoboda
1.Overture of the Season, Op. 89
Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra, Op. 148
2.Con moto
3.Adagio
4.Vivace
Niel DePonte, marimba
Symphony No. 1 (of Nature), Op. 20
5.Moderato
6.Presto
7.Andante
8.Allegro - Moderato
James DePriest
Oregon Symphony
TOMAS SVOBODA
Born in Paris of Czech parents, December 6, 1939, Tomas Svoboda spent the years of World War II in Boston where he began his musical education on the piano at the age of 3. Showing an early talent for composing, Svoboda completed his first opus, now published, at the age of 9. After his family's return to Prague in 1946, he continued his music studies, entering the Prague Conservatory in 1954 as its youngest student.
The premiere of this symphony in 1957 by the prestigious FOK Prague Symphonic Orchestra (Vaclav Smetacek, conductor) caused a sensation, for until Svoboda walked onto the stage to acknowledge the applause, many in the audience had not realized the 36-minute symphony had been composed by a 16-year-old boy not yet even formally schooled in composition or orchestration.
In 1962, after graduating from the Prague Conservatory with degrees in percussion, composition and conducting, Svoboda entered the Academy of Music in Prague. By this time, performances and radio broadcasts of Svoboda's orchestra works brought national recognition to Svoboda, clearly establishing him as Czechoslovakia's most important young composer.
In 1964, his family escaped communist-ruled Czechoslovakia and settled in the United States, where Svoboda enrolled at the University of Southern California as a graduate student in 1966. His compositional skills were already so well-developed that the department allowed him to forgo its usual program in order to study individually with Ingolf Dahl and Department Chairman Halsey Stevens, a composer and Bartók scholar.
Stevens has written, “It was almost embarrassing to have him come to lessons with work so completely and satisfactorily realized that it needed almost nothing in the way of criticism.” After receiving a master's degree in 1969 Tomas Svoboda accepted a position at Portland State University in Oregon, where he taught composition and music theory for 27 years. He retired from full-time teaching duties in June 1998.
Today, more than 1,000 performances of his music have taken place. Svoboda's catalog of works consists of 180 works including six symphonies and more than 50 commissions. An impressive 30 different works have been performed by North American, European and Japanese orchestras including the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras, the San Francisco Symphony and the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic. World premieres of Svoboda's works have been given in both Carnegie Hall and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Svoboda was also the 1992 Recipient of the Governor's Arts Award.
For more information, visit www.TomasSvoboda.com
JAMES D E PRIEST
Music Director of the Oregon Symphony since 1980, James DePriest was previously Music Director of the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic for four years. Born in Philadelphia in 19366, he studied composition with Vincent Persichetti at the Philadelphia Conservatory and obtained Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1962, while on a State Department tour in Bangkok, he contracted polio but recovered sufficiently to win a first prize in the 1964 Dimitri Mitropoulos International Conducting Competition. He was selected by Leonard Bernstein to be an assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic for the 1965-66 season.
DePriest made his highly acclaimed European debut with the Rotterdam Philharmonic in 1969. In the same year he was awarded a Martha Baird Rockefeller grant. Concerts soon followed in Stockholm, Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, Belgium and Italy. In 1971 Antal Dorati chose DePriest to become his Associate Conductor with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. In 1976 DePriest became Music Director of the Quebec Symphony, Canada's oldest orchestra, where he remained until 1983. In 1980 he was named Music Director and Conductor of the Oregon Symphony, which two years later he guided into the ranks of the major United States orchestra. The Oregon Symphony's 2002-2003 James DePriest Tribute Season marked his 23rd and final season as Music Director.
Much in demand as a guest conductor, DePriest pursues a distinguished career in America and abroad, regularly performing with the major American orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony and the New York Philharmonic. In 1997 he made an impressive subscription concert debut with the Boston Symphony and was immediately re-engaged to appear with the Boston Symphony at the 1998 Tanglewood Music Festival and then to conduct the orchestra for the Festival's closing Beethoven 9th concerts in the summer of 1999. He also conducted the opening concert for the 50th Anniversary season of the Aspen Music Festival, where he is scheduled to open the 2003 season, and 1999's opening Wolf Trap concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Abroad, recent and future engagements include appearances in Amsterdam, Tokyo, Helsinki, Prague, Vienna, England, France and Australia. In the spring of 1998 he led the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic on a second United States tour.
James DePriest has been awarded 13 honorary doctorates and is the author of two books of poetry. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and is a recipient of the Insignia of Commander of the Order of the Lion of Finland and the Officer of the Order of Cultural Merit of Monaco. DePriest is the nephew of the legendary contralto Marian Anderson.
For more information, visit www.JamesDePriest.com
NIEL D E PONTE
Niel DePonte is the Principal Percussionist of the Oregon Symphony, a post to which he was appointed in 1977 at the age of 24. He has appeared with the Oregon Symphony numerous times as a marimba soloist, playing a varied repertoire including his own composition, Concertino for Marimba and Orchestra. He has also appeared as a soloist with the Colorado Springs and Walla Walla (Wash.) symphonies and appears regularly as a solo percussionist for Chamber Music Northwest.
DePonte is an artist/clinician for the Yamaha Corporation and performs on a Yamaha concert marimba. His principal teachers and influences have been Fred Hinger, formerly Principal Timpanist of the Metropolitan Opera and Philadelphia Orchestras; John Beck, formerly Principal Timpanist, of the Rochester Philharmonic; Bill Cahn, formerly Principal Percussionist of the Rochester Philharmonic and a member of the Nexus Percussion Group; and Leigh Stevens, marimba virtuoso. DePonte was born in New York City and received his training at the Eastman School of Music where he earned a Master of Music degree and the Performer's Certificate. He also holds a degree in education from the State University of New York College at Fredonia, where he studied percussion with Theodore Frazeur.
When not performing as a percussion soloist or member of the Oregon Symphony, DePonte continues to establish himself as one of his generation's most versatile conductors. He is the Music Director and Conductor for Oregon Ballet Theatre, and has appeared as guest conductor with the symphonies of Oregon, Syracuse, Spokane, Charlotte, Anchorage, Tulsa, Dayton, and the San Francisco and Boston Ballet Orchestras. He can be heard on CD conducting Oregon Ballet Theater's version of the Nutcracker Ballet with the OBT Orchestra and as a percussionist on numerous CDs of Chamber Music Northwest, as well as the Oregon Symphony's complete discography. This marks his first CD as a concerto soloist.
Also a published composer, DePonte's works have been performed by the Oregon Symphony, the Eastman Wind Ensemble and other ensembles throughout the United States. He has composed, arranged and edited orchestral scores for use in ballet performance, most recently, a full-length ballet score for Houston Ballet's 2002 production of Peter Pan. As President of MetroArts Inc., a non-profit arts education organization founded by DePonte in 1993, he has done considerable research on the use of the arts for teaching cognitive strategies in the classroom. He is the Artistic Director of the Young Artists at the Schnitz Concerto Competition and the MetroArts Kids Camp, where creative thinking processes are taught via music, theater, dance and visual arts, to children each summer at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts.
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