French-born, but a long-time resident of the United States, Claudine Carlson has appeared with many leading orchestras including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Washington’s National Symphony and London’s Philharmonia and London Symphony Orchestra, and at the Metropolitan Opera. She has sung at major summer festivals including Ravinia, Tanglewood, Aspen, Saratoga, the Hollywood Bowl and Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart. In recital, concert and opera, Claudine Carlson’s musicianship has been praised as highly as her voice.

‘From every point of view – vocalism, musicianship, intelligence, personal qualities – he is certainly a major musical asset.’ So wrote Leonard Bernstein about bass-baritone Arnold Voketaitis. With over 130 roles in his repertoire, Voketaitis has sung with nearly every major opera company in the United States and Europe. His operatic debut was with the New York City Opera Company in Strauss’s The Silent Woman; and he was in the first National Tour with the Metropolitan Opera Company. Also a popular soloist, Voketaitis has appeared regularly with major orchestras and conductors.

Founded in the 1976/77 season by then-Music Director Jerzy Semkow, the St. Louis Symphony Chorus is an auditioned choral ensemble composed of mostly volunteer singers from the St. Louis region. Chorus members come from all walks of life, uniting to create remarkable musical experiences.

Appearing with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra several times each season, the Chorus performs repertoire from the entire choral-orchestral canon. Recognised for its artistic excellence, the Chorus has performed with the SLSO to critical acclaim at Powell Hall, Carnegie Hall, and other venues locally and nationally. The Chorus rehearses on Tuesday nights and auditions are held periodically throughout the season.

www.slso.org

Founded in 1880, the St Louis Symphony is the second-oldest orchestra in the country and is widely considered one of the world’s finest. In September 2005, internationally acclaimed conductor David Robertson became the 12th music director and second American-born conductor in the orchestra’s history. In its 132nd season, the St Louis Symphony continues to strive for artistic excellence, fiscal responsibility and community connection. The St Louis Symphony is one of only a handful of major American orchestras invited to perform regularly at the prestigious Carnegie Hall. Recordings by the symphony have been honored with six GRAMMY^® Awards and 56 GRAMMY^® nominations over the years. The symphony has embraced technological advances in music distribution by offering recordings over the internet. The St Louis Symphony download initiative includes live recordings of John Adams’s Harmonielehre, Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No 1, with Christian Tetzlaff, and Scriabin’s The Poem of Ecstasy available exclusively on iTunes and Amazon.com. In 2009, the symphony’s Nonesuch recording of John Adams’s Doctor Atomic and Guide to Strange Places reached No 2 on the Billboard rankings for classical music, and was named “Best CD of the Decade” by the The Times of London. In September 2012, the St Louis Symphony embarked on its first European tour with music director David Robertson. The symphony visited international festivals in Berlin and Lucerne, with stops in Paris and London as well, performing works by Beethoven, Brahms, Sibelius, Schoenberg, Gershwin, Ives, and Elliott Carter. Christian Tetzlaff joined the symphony as featured soloist. In June 2008, the St Louis Symphony launched Building Our Business, which takes a proactive, two-pronged approach: build audiences and re-invigorate the St Louis brand making the symphony and Powell Hall the place to be; and build the donor base for enhanced institutional commitment and donations. This is all part of a larger strategic plan adopted in May 2009 that includes new core ideology and a 10-year strategic vision focusing on artistic and institutional excellence, doubling the existing audience, and revenue growth across all key operating areas.

Internationally acclaimed conductor Leonard Slatkin is Music Director Laureate of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO), Directeur Musical Honoraire of the Orchestre National de Lyon (ONL), and Conductor Laureate of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. He maintains a rigorous schedule of guest conducting throughout the world and is active as a composer, author, and educator. Slatkin has received six GRAMMY awards and 35 nominations.

One of his recent recordings is the world premiere of Alexander Kastalsky’s Requiem for Fallen Brothers commemorating the 100th anniversary of the armistice ending World War I. Other recent Naxos releases include works by Saint-Saëns, Ravel, and Berlioz (with the ONL) and music by Copland, Rachmaninov, Borzova, McTee, and John Williams (with the DSO). In addition, he has recorded the complete Brahms, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky symphonies with the DSO (available online as digital downloads).

A recipient of the prestigious National Medal of Arts, Slatkin also holds the rank of Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor. He has received the Prix Charbonnier from the Federation of Alliances Françaises, Austria’s Decoration of Honor in Silver, the League of American Orchestras’ Gold Baton Award, and the 2013 ASCAP Deems Taylor Special Recognition Award for his debut book, Conducting Business. A second volume, Leading Tones: Reflections on Music, Musicians, and the Music Industry, was published by Amadeus Press in 2017. His latest book, Classical Crossroads: The Path Forward for Music in the 21st Century (2021), is available through Rowman & Littlefield.

Slatkin has conducted virtually all the leading orchestras in the world. As Music Director, he has held posts in New Orleans; St. Louis; Washington, DC; London (with the BBC Symphony Orchestra); Detroit; and Lyon, France. He has also served as Principal Guest Conductor in Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Cleveland.

www.leonardslatkin.com

Sergey Prokofiev, precocious as a child, entered the St Petersburg Conservatory in 1904, by which time he had already written a great deal of music. At the Conservatory he shocked the more conservative director, Glazunov, but learned much from an older fellow student, the composer Myaskovsky. After the Revolution he was given permission to travel abroad and remained intermittently out of Russia, in America and then in Paris, until his final return to Russia in 1936. At home, though in touch again with the root of his inspiration, he found himself out of favour with the authorities and in 1948 the subject of particular and direct censure. His death in 1953, on the same day as Stalin, deprived him of the enjoyment of the subsequent relaxation in musical censorship that then took place. In style Prokofiev is ironic, writing in a musical language that is often acerbic.

Stage Works

Prokofiev first attempted to write an opera at the age of nine. More mature operas include The Love for Three Oranges, written in 1919 for Chicago, The Fiery Angel and War and Peace, the last based on Tolstoy’s novel. An early ballet score for Diaghilev proved unacceptable, but later ballets, once rejected as undanceable, include Romeo and Juliet and the 1944 Cinderella. Both ballets as well as the first mentioned opera are known to concert audiences from the composer’s own orchestral suites based on them. The Prodigal Son was commissioned by Diaghilev and first staged in Paris in May 1929, three months before the impresario’s death. Film scores by Prokofiev include Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible. Music for the film Lieutenant Kijé, about a fictional character created by a clerical error and maintained in existence to the end, was written in 1933.

Orchestral Music

Symphonies

Prokofiev wrote seven symphonies. Of these the ‘Classical’ Symphony (No. 1), written in 1916–17 with the work of Haydn in mind, is the best known. The Fifth Symphony of 1944 is a work on a much larger scale. The Third Symphony makes use of material from the opera The Fiery Angel, and the Fourth Symphony draws on the ballet The Prodigal Son.

Concertos

Of Prokofiev’s five piano concertos the third is the best known, written in the composer’s instantly recognisable musical language, from the incisive opening to the motor rhythms that follow, in a mixture of lyricism and acerbic wit. More overtly Romantic in feeling are the two fine violin concertos. His early Cello Concerto, completed in 1938, was followed 14 years later by his Cello Concertino, completed by the cellist Rostropovich and the composer Kabalevsky after Prokofiev’s death.

Choral and Vocal Music

In addition to a wide variety of choral and vocal music, which includes a concert version of the film score for Alexander Nevsky, Prokofiev wrote a number of less memorable works for various occasions of political importance.

Chamber Music

Chamber music by Prokofiev includes two sonatas for violin and piano, the second originally for flute and piano and revised by the composer with the help of the violinist David Oistrakh. He completed his C major Cello Sonata in 1949, but a second sonata for the instrument was left unfinished at the time of his death. The Five Melodies for violin and piano, based on earlier songs, are also in general repertoire.

Piano Music

Prokofiev, himself a formidable pianist, completed nine piano sonatas out of a projected eleven. His music for piano also includes piano versions of music from the ballets Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella.

Music for Children

One of the most widely known of all Prokofiev’s compositions is his tale for children Peter and the Wolf, for narrator and orchestra. It is a simple pedagogical work to introduce to children the instruments of the orchestra, with instruments or groups of instruments representing characters in the story.