Press Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

WHO: The Austin Symphony Orchestra
DATE: September 28, 2007
CONTACT: Don Hill, Dir. of Public Relations - (512) 476-6064

AUSTIN SYMPHONY COMMISSIONS NEW WORK FOR LONG CENTER OPENING

The Austin Symphony Orchestra is proud to announce it has commissioned a new orchestral work to celebrate its inaugural season in the new Joe R. & Teresa Lozano Long Center for the Performing Arts. The orchestra will open its 98th concert season in its new permanent home in September 2008 and will feature the world premiere of a new work by native Texan and award-winning composer Christopher Theofanidis. Mr. Theofanidis was chosen from a list of well-recognized, award-winning composers to celebrate the opening of Austin's new performing arts center.

Born in Dallas in 1967, Theofanidis teaches at the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He recently served as Composer of the Year for the Pittsburgh Symphony's 2006-2007 season where he wrote a violin concerto for Sarah Chang. His music has had performances by many of the leading orchestras around the world, including the National Symphony, the London Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo and the symphonies of Atlanta, Houston, Baltimore, St. Louis and Detroit. A holder of degrees from Yale, the Eastman School and the University of Houston, Mr. Theofanidis has been the recipient of many prestigious awards, including the International Masterprize, the Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, Fulbright Fellowship and the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Charles Ives Fellowship. He was nominated last year for a Grammy® award for his choral/orchestral work, The Here and Now, which will be performed in April 2008 at Carnegie Hall by the Atlanta Symphony and Chorus. His orchestral concert work, Rainbow Body, has been one of the most performed new orchestral works of the last ten years, having been featured by over 70 orchestras. Indeed, the Austin Symphony performed this work in its opening concert of the 2005-2006 season.

Mr. Theofanidis' recent projects include a ballet for the American Ballet Theatre, a new string orchestra work for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (premiering at Carnegie Hall in December 2007) and the Austin Symphony commission. Funding for the new Austin Symphony work comes in part from a grant from the Austin Community Foundation.