Keitaro Harada Returns To The Tucson Symphony Orchestra

by Tucson Symphony

Award Winning Maestro Will Conduct Clarinet Concerto Aaron Copland Composed for Benny Goodman

Piazzolla, Márquez and Villa-Lobos Pieces Complete Program

(Tucson, AZ)─Keitaro Harada, who studied conducting at the University of Arizona and launched his career with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, will return to conduct Copland and Goodman, a Masterworks Series program featuring the Clarinet Concerto composed for Benny Goodman by Aaron Copland. The performances, Saturday, November 17 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, November 18 at 2:00 p.m. are at Catalina Foothills High School, 4300 E. Sunrise Dr. The program will also feature music by Piazzolla, Márquez and Villa-Lobos. Concert Comments, one hour prior to performances, are complimentary with tickets.

Harada is a three-time recipient of The Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award (2016, 2015, 2014), Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview (2013), the Seiji Ozawa Conducting Fellowship at Tanglewood Music Festival, and was a student of Lorin Maazel at Castleton Festival. A James E. Rogers Institute for Orchestral and Opera Conducting Fellow at the University of Arizona, Harada was a frequent guest on the TSO’s podium. He is now in his fourth season as Associate Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops while his guest conducting career has taken him to many major orchestras around the world. He last conducted the TSO in November, 2016.

“I’m extremely excited to return to Tucson Symphony,” says Harada. “As a graduate of UofA, Tucson is my home away from home and TSO has always been an important musical family for me. We have done so many types of programs together and this trip will be a wonderful homecoming.”

Aaron Copland admitted that he never would have thought to write a concerto for clarinet, had legendary jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman not commissioned it.  Copland began work on the concerto in Brazil; he spent 1947 in Rio de Janeiro as a lecturer, just after receiving the commission from Goodman.  The second movement benefits from his time there: he incorporated a tune popular in Brazil at the time into the movement’s structure. Goodman performed the premiere in a 1950 radio broadcast with the NBC Symphony Orchestra.  The Philadelphia Orchestra gave the public premiere two weeks later. Boris Allakhverdyan, who will perform the concerto with the TSO, was appointed Principal Clarinet of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2016 after previously serving as Principal Clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

The program will open with Astor Piazzolla’s Tangazo, rooted in the traditional tango form but totally symphonic in scale, content, and treatment. Arturo Márquez’s Danzon No. 4 and Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Sinfonietta No.1 complete the program. Many patrons are familiar with Márquez’s Danzon No. 2, but No. 4 is a TSO premiere. Villa-Lobos’ Sinfonietta is dedicated to Mozart and is based on two of his themes.

The Masterworks Series is sponsored by Splendido and receives generous support from Drs. John P. and Helen S. Schaefer. Concert Comments is sponsored by Fishkind, Bakewell, Maltzman, Hunter and Associates Eye Care and Surgery Center.

Tickets to Copland and Goodman are $45 to $55. They are available online at www.tucsonsymphony.org, at the Tucson Symphony Orchestra Box Office, 2175 N. Sixth Avenue or by phone at 520.882.8585.  TSO Box Office hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5 p.m. unless otherwise indicated.  Programming, artists and prices are subject to change.

Contact: Terry Marshall, Public Relations Manager, 520.620.9158