Falletta Signs New Contract with Virginia Symphony

By WYDaily Staff Monday, May 09, 2011

Virginia Symphony Orchestra Board Chair Jane Short announced Sunday that Grammy-winning Music Director JoAnn Falletta has signed a new contract with the Virginia Symphony that could take her through her 25th season.

The Virginian-Pilot reported the contract was for three years, with the possibility of a two-year extension.

“JoAnn Falletta is such a beloved part of our community, someone that the Symphony and the region treasures,” said Short. "I am so pleased that her great talent will continue to lead our orchestra to new heights and new achievements as the VSO approaches its 100th anniversary.”

Falletta was named VSO Music Director in 1991. “It was my first big orchestra,” said Falletta. “The musicians, the orchestra and I nurtured each other and the community nourished us so we flourished, becoming the mature orchestra we are today. I feel privileged to be part of the Hampton Roads community and the VSO team.”

Highlights of Falletta’s tenure include performances at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, opening three new performance halls in Hampton Roads where the orchestra now presents regular series; developing a discography of 12 recordings and this spring recording the music of Adolphus Hailstork on the Naxos label, the premiere classical music label; receiving an ASCAP award for “adventurous programming," and firmly establishing the VSO as a professional orchestra in the top ten percent of symphony orchestras in the nation.

Eleven concerts were sold out during Falletta’s 2010-2011 anniversary season, including Carmina Burana, A Gershwin Celebration and Scheherazade.

Although the Symphony Classics season has ended, Falletta continues to conduct the musicians of the Virginia Symphony as they participate in the Virginia Arts Festival providing orchestral support for violinist Joshua Bell during his April 23 concert as well as for Amadeus on May 20 and 22. She will conduct the VSO in the free May 30 Memorial Day in the Park concert at Town Point Park.

Falletta has won two Grammys, 10 ASCAP awards, the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award for Exceptionally Gifted American Conductors; the Stokowski Competition and the Toscanini, Ditson and Bruno Walter Awards. Early in her career she was described by The New York Times as “one of the finest conductors of her generation.”

In the Virginia Symphony 2011-2012 season, Falletta will conduct a series of piano classics with the orchestra including concertos by Rachmaninoff, Liszt, Grieg and Tchaikovsky; the Barber violin concerto with Gil Shaham; and the glorious Coronation Mass by Mozart. One of the crowning achievements in 2012 will be Falletta’s completion of the Mahler cycle with her first performance of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony “Symphony of a Thousand” co-presented with the Virginia Arts Festival.

Falletta divides her time between international conducting travel, the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and the Buffalo Philharmonic where she is also the Music Director.