ANOTHER GUSTAVO DUDAMEL! BUT Arturo Muñoz HAILS FROM ECUADOR VIA SINGLE MOTHER! CLASSICAL CANDELA!! Tito Arturo Muñoz (born July 14, 1983) - Recently appointed Music Director of The Phoenix Symphony, Tito Muñoz is increasingly recognized as one of the most gifted and versatile conductors of his generation. He previously served as Music Director of the Opéra National de Lorraine and the Orchestre symphonique et lyrique de Nancy in France. Prior appointments include Assistant Conductor positions with The Cleveland Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra and the Aspen Music Festival. Mr. Muñozs 2014-15 season includes guest appearances with the Cleveland Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Florida Orchestra, Richmond Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, and the Manhattan School of Music. In Canada, he makes appearances with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Torontos Royal Conservatory Orchestra and the Calgary Philharmonic. Additional international engagements will take place with the Sao Paolo State Symphony. Past notable engagements include the orchestras of Alabama, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Hawaii, Houston, Indianapolis, Louisville, Milwaukee, Naples, Rochester, San Antonio, Sarasota, and Westchester, among others. Summer festival engagements have included the Chautauqua Symphony, Grant Park Orchestra and the Chicago Philharmonic at the Ravinia Festival. Previous international engagements include the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Opéra de Rennes, Danish Radio Sinfonietta, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Lorraine, Auckland Philharmonia, and Sydney Symphony. Mr. Muñoz continues to maintain a close relationship with The Cleveland Orchestra, where he has returned to conduct annually, including a critically acclaimed subscription week as a last-minute replacement for Pierre Boulez. Mr. Muñoz conducted his first joint performances with The Joffrey Ballet and The Cleveland Orchestra in the summer of 2009. This successful collaboration led to further performances in the summer of 2010 as well as an invitation to tour with The Joffrey Ballet in the 2010/11 season. In the 2012/13 season, he conducted The Cleveland Orchestra’s first complete Nutcracker performances, a program he reprises in 2014/15, and, in summer 2013, led the orchestra’s first staged Rite of Spring, both with the Joffrey Ballet. Committed to working with young artists, Mr. Muñoz has conducted performances at the Aspen Music Festival, Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Cleveland Institute of Music, Indiana University, Kent/Blossom Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, New England Conservatory, New World Symphony, Oberlin Conservatory and the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, as well as a nine-city tour with the St. Olaf College Orchestra. Additionally, he has had ongoing relationships with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and the Portland (OR) Youth Philharmonic, leading rehearsals and masterclasses. He has also led conducting classes at the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen, Cleveland Institute of Music and Indiana University. During the summers of 2004 through 2006, Mr. Muñoz attended the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen where he studied with David Zinman and Murry Sidlin and participated in masterclasses with Asher Fisch, Leon Fleisher, George Manahan, David Robertson, and Leonard Slatkin. He is the winner of the Aspen Music Festivals 2005 Robert J. Harth Conductor Prize and the 2006 Aspen Conducting Prize, returning to Aspen as the festivals Assistant Conductor in the summer of 2007, and later as a guest conductor. He made his professional conducting debut in 2006 with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, invited by Leonard Slatkin as a participant of the National Conducting Institute. That same year, at the invitation of David Zinman, he made his Cleveland Orchestra debut at the Blossom Music Festival. An accomplished violinist, Mr. Muñoz began his musical training in the Juilliard Schools Music Advancement Program, continuing studies in violin and composition at the Manhattan School of Music Preparatory Division. He attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, and participated in the InterSchool Orchestras of New York and New York Youth Symphony. He furthered his training at Queens College (CUNY) as a violin student of Daniel Phillips. titomunoz/biography.html N.Y. TIMES: ‘Four Seasons’ Gets New Spin - By VIVIEN SCHWEITZER The composer Max Richter wanted to “recompose” Vivaldi’s ubiquitous “Four Seasons,” a masterpiece all too often demoted to musical wallpaper. In a recent interview with NPR he said that he initially loved the work, but it began to grate because of its elevator-music status; “the record and the project are trying to reclaim the piece, to fall in love with it again.” At Le Poisson Rouge on Thursday, Tito Muñoz conducted Ensemble LPR, the space’s new resident group, and the violinist Daniel Hope, in the second of two performances. Mr. Richter’s re-creation, scored for electronics and ensemble including harpsichord, reflects many of his influences, which range from Baroque composers like Purcell to electronica, dance music and punk. There are many alluring moments in Mr. Richter’s reimagining, beginning with the misty ambient textures and quirky re-creation of the violin chirps in “Spring,” the opening movement. The string line underpinning the first section added an unfortunate dollop of schmaltz, but such moments dwindled as the work progressed. Unexpected modulations surfaced in the beginning of “Summer,” followed by eerie string harmonics in the slow movement. CLICK LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE! nytimes/2012/12/24/arts/music/max-richters-update-to-four-seasons-at-le-poisson-rouge.html?_r=0 ARIZONA CENTRAL NEWS: Introducing Phoenix Symphony maestro Tito Muñoz - The affable young conductor Tito Munoz makes his debut as music director Sept. 19-20 - Kerry Lengel The cartoon image of an orchestra conductor is that of a mad wizard, arms windmilling, frizzy locks of white hair whipping about like ball lightning. Expect nothing of the sort from Tito Muñoz. Born in Queens, N.Y., he was raised in Forest Hills, a diverse, generally well-to-do neighborhood, as the only child of a single mother, Rosemary Ochoa. An immigrant from Ecuador, she worked as an area sales manager for UPS and later as a special-education teacher and school principal. Music was not an important part of their life together. The new music director of the Phoenix Symphony is, at 31, a relatively fresh face in the classical music scene. Affable yet reserved, his style at the podium would best be described as precise: no wild gesticulating, but instead brisk, economical motions and plain-as-day expressions with musical gist as clear to the casual appreciator as it is to the conservatory-trained instrumentalist. People ask … Whats so special about the gestures? Well, theyre not really that special, Muñoz says. When you get to a traffic stop and theres a traffic cop in front of you and they point at you to go, you go. He tells you to stop and you stop. And thats basically what we (conductors) do. Were telling the players to do something they need to do or maybe that they need to be encouraged to do or reminded to do. It sounds simple, but of course its anything but easy. azcentral/story/entertainment/arts/2014/09/13/introducing-phoenix-symphony-maestro-tito-muoz/15538803/
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 23:35:24 +0000