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Carnegie Hall presents the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Artistic Director Richard Tognetti joined by soprano Dawn Upshaw on Monday, April 30 at 7:30 p.m. in Zankel Hall, performing the New York premiere of Maria Schneider’s Winter Morning Walks, on a program along with Schumann’s “Mondnacht” and Schubert’s “Geheimes” and “Der Tod und das Mädchen.” Also on the program is Shostakovich’s Elegy and Polka and Grieg’s String Quartet in G Minor, arranged by Tognetti.

Winter Morning Walks is based on the book of poems by US poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Ted Kooser written while the poet was undergoing cancer treatment. During treatment, he would take walks in Nebraska before dawn. In composing Winter Morning Walks, Schneider explained that she particularly loves Kooser's poetry because it taps into her feelings for the rural Midwest from which both she and Upshaw are natives. She describes “an openness and a really intense beauty that is very subtle and simple… it doesn't come in dramatic mountains and waterfalls, it comes in the light in the sky, in the clouds, in the colors of the low sun on the grain, on the corn. It comes in the birds. It comes in the little things. Ted's poems capture that. I think my music has that. It has that broad openness with an accessible, simple beauty to it." Maria Schneider composed Winter Morning Walks expressly for Ms. Upshaw and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Co-commissioned by ACO, the Ojai Music Festival, and Cal Performances, it was premiered in Ojai, California in June 2011.


Artist Information
Dawn Upshaw has achieved worldwide celebrity as a singer of opera and concert repertoire ranging from the sacred works of Bach to the freshest sounds of today. Her ability to reach to the heart of music and text has earned her both the devotion of an exceptionally diverse audience, and the distinctions awarded to only the most distinguished of artists. In 2007, she was named a Fellow of the MacArthur Foundation, the first vocal artist to be awarded the five-year “genius” grant, and, in 2008, she was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. She is a favored partner of many leading musicians, including Richard Goode, the Kronos Quartet, James Levine, and Esa-Pekka Salonen. In her work as a recitalist, and particularly in her work with composers, Dawn Upshaw has become a generative force in concert music, having premiered more than 25 works in the past decade. From Carnegie Hall to large and small venues throughout the world, she regularly presents specially designed programs composed of lieder, unusual contemporary works in many languages, and folk and popular music. She furthers this work in master classes and workshops with young singers at major music festivals, conservatories, and liberal arts colleges. She is Artistic Director of the Vocal Arts Program at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, and a faculty member of the Tanglewood Music Center. A four-time Grammy Award winner, Dawn Upshaw is featured on more than 50 recordings.

Founded in 1975, the Australian Chamber Orchestra is internationally renowned for its inspired programming and the rapturous response of audiences and critics alike. Every year, this ensemble presents performances of the highest standard to audiences around the world, having performed in 343 cities in 37 countries since its inception. The ACO’s unique artistic style encompasses not only the masterworks of the classical repertoire, but also innovative cross-art form projects and a vigorous commissioning program. Richard Tognetti was appointed Artistic Director and Lead Violin in 1989. Under his leadership, the ACO has performed as a flexible and versatile ‘ensemble of soloists’ on modern and period instruments, as a small chamber group, a small symphony orchestra, and as an electro-acoustic collective. In a nod to past traditions, only the cellists are seated—the resulting sense of energy is one of the most commented upon elements of an ACO concert experience.

The ACO’s dedication and musicianship has created warm relationships with such celebrated soloists as Emmanuel Pahud, Steven Isserlis, Dawn Upshaw, Imogen Cooper, Christian Lindberg, Joseph Tawadros, Melvyn Tan, and Pieter Wispelwey. The ACO has made acclaimed recordings for labels including ABC Classics, Sony, Channel Classics, Hyperion, EMI, and Chandos and currently has a recording contract with BIS.


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