CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
André Previn
David Finck

Zankel Hall
Thursday, February 19th, 2009 at 8:30 PM

André Previn
David Finck, Bass

Saluting André Previn at 80

This concert and Just Jazz: The Joyce Wein Series are sponsored by the Joyce and George Wein Foundation in memory of Joyce Wein.

Program Notes:

Bob Golden on
ANDRÉ PREVIN

“Beyond Category” was a two-word compliment André Previn’s good friend and idol, the American musical genius Duke Ellington, would reserve only for a choice few he particularly admired. This elite group included such others as Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Oscar Peterson, Frank Sinatra, and (if ever “beyond category” could be more descriptive) the esteemed conductor-composer-pianist André Previn himself.

Among the most respected and acclaimed major orchestra conductors and piano soloists of recent decades, Maestro Previn is further renowned for several separate careers, including the one that earned him 13 Academy Award nominations and four Oscars (Gigi, Porgy and Bess, Irma La Duce, My Fair Lady) as a greatly admired film music composer and orchestrator of Hollywood’s “Golden Age.” As a 16-year-old wunderkind, Previn was “discovered” by the MGM Music Department, and for the next quarter century was among the most valued and in-demand musicians in the movie industry.

As famously versatile as he is prolific, this master musician now revisits Carnegie Hall as one of the more highly regarded, influential, and popular jazz pianists in the history of the art form. From his first jazz recordings nearly six decades ago, Previn’s singular and signature blues-edged and gospel-tinged hard-bop style has influenced such subsequent major jazz pianists as Horace Silver, Les McCann, Hampton Hawes, Bobby Timmons, Monty Alexander, Tete Montolio, and Benny Green. As a ubiquitous Los Angeles–based pianist, composer, and arranger in the early 1950s, Previn was among the primary and foremost progenitors of the still vibrant and significant “West Coast Jazz” movement.

A 10-time Grammy winner—including one for his 1960 West Side Story jazz trio recording and another for the 1961 André Previn Plays Harold Arlen solo piano anthology—Previn did much to bring jazz versions of film and Broadway musical scores, and the full-length solo piano album to their highest peak of critical and commercial achievement. His 1956 trio recital of My Fair Lady with the legendary drummer Shelly Manne and bassist Leroy Vinnegar would remain the largest-selling jazz album of all time for many years; his trio realizations of Li’l Abner and Pal Joey (1957); and Gigi, Bells Are Ringing, and West Side Story (1958) continue to be well-regarded and popular pinnacles of that sub-genre. Moreover, his late 50s solo piano traversals of works by Great American Songbook composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, and Jerome Kern are considered summit exemplars of this most formidable challenge for every jazz pianist.

After many decades and parallel nonpareil careers as a classical music icon, film music giant, and legendary jazzman, André Previn has continued to be called a “genius,” “musical colossus,” and “one-person Renaissance Era.” It was, however, his idol Duke Ellington who got it exactly right with his admiring and definitive description of his longtime friend: Beyond Category.

—Bob Golden is a music industry veteran who is currently Vice President of Marketing at Carlin America, a major multinational music publishing corporation.

André Previn
Conductor, composer, and pianist André Previn has received a number of awards and honors for his outstanding musical accomplishments. He continues to redefine the possibilities in his extraordinary career. Mr. Previn is one of the most distinguished musicians of our time. He holds both the Austrian and German Cross of Merit, received the Kennedy Center’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998, was honored as Musical America’s “Musician of the Year” in 1999, and was knighted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 1996. He received the Glenn Gould Prize in Toronto in 2006. Most recently he was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award of the London Symphony Orchestra in May 2008.
Sir André Previn has received several Grammy Awards, most recently in 2005 for the recordings of his violin concerto, Anne-Sophie; and Bernstein’s Serenade, featuring Anne-Sophie Mutter with the Boston and London symphony orchestras.
A frequent guest with the world’s major orchestras—both in concert and on recording—Mr. Previn has worked frequently with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and the Vienna Philharmonic. In addition he has held the chief artistic posts with such orchestras as the Houston Symphony, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony, and the Royal Philharmonic.
As a pianist Mr. Previn has performed in recital with Renée Fleming at Lincoln Center and Barbara Bonney at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He also teaches annually at the Tanglewood Music Center, where he works with student orchestras, conductors, and composers, and enjoys coaching chamber music. He regularly gives chamber music concerts with the Emerson String Quartet, as well as with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and the Vienna Philharmonic.
Mr. Previn has enjoyed a number of successes as a composer. His first opera, A Streetcar Named Desire,was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque. During the 1999–2000 season, Mr. Previn had new works premiered and recorded by the Vienna Philharmonic (Diversions) and Renée Fleming (The Giraffes Go To Hamburg and Three Songs of Emily Dickinson). Other recent compositions include a work for violin and piano (Tango, Song, and Dance); and his double concerto for violin and double bass, written for Anne-Sophie Mutter and Roman Patkoló. His second opera, Brief Encounter, a commission from the Houston Grand Opera, will be premiered in Houston in May 2009. His double concerto for violin and viola written for Anne-Sophie Mutter and Yuri Bashmet will be premiered in New York later this year.
André Previn records for Deutsche Grammophon. His concert music is published by G. Schirmer, Inc. and Chester Music Ltd.

David Finck, Bass
For David Finck, music is a language all its own. “I hear music as a spoken language,” he says. “When I listen, I’m conscious of the breaths that are taken during a phrase; I hear the vocabulary, the inflection, and the syntax. I listen for all of it.”
It’s a statement that makes sense given Mr. Finck’s skills as a bassist and the diverse artists he has performed and recorded with, including Dizzy Gillespie, Aretha Franklin, Sinead O’Connor, Herbie Hancock, Ivan Lins, Al Jarreau, Tony Bennett, Paquito D’Rivera, George Michael, Rosemary Clooney and André Previn, to name just a few. Over the years Mr. Finck has become one of the most sought-after musicians in New York City, equally revered for his work in jazz, popular, Brazilian, and classical music.
Mr. Finck studied with several of The Philadelphia Orchestra’s double bassists before he
began college at the prestigious Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. After graduation, he settled in New York City. He had barely unpacked when he left to tour with Woody Herman and his Thundering Herd.

Mr. Finck’s discography lists more than 100 recordings including Platinum- and Gold-selling records with Rod Stewart, Natalie Cole, and Elton John. His 2008 release Future Day (Soundbrush) received tremendous critical acclaim and was recognized as one of the top 100 jazz releases of 2008. Mr. Finck has also written liner notes for several CDs as well as contributions to the Village Voice and is one of the featured authors in a recently published book, Frank Sinatra: The Man, The Music, The Legend (University of Rochester Press). Visit davidfinck.net for more information.