Curtis Symphony Orchestra with Karina Canellakis, conductor

Alumna Karina Canellakis, part of a new generation of female conductors, returns to Curtis to lead this concert after conducting the Curtis Opera Theatre’s Marriage of Figaro in 2016. Internationally acclaimed for her emotionally charged performances and interpretive depth, she recently won the prestigious Sir Georg Solti Award.

Metropolitan Opera star Amanda Majeski, also a Curtis alumna, features in Strauss’s poignant final songs, a perfect match for her “glowing” soprano (Opera News). Ms. Majeski’s’s career has skyrocketed since her dramatic last-minute substitution as the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. This spring she stars in a new production of Così fan tutte at the Met.

The concert opens with alumnus George Walker’s Lyric for Strings. The first African-American recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for music, Mr. Walker is a gifted piano soloist and teacher as well as a revered composer. Written in 1946, Lyric for Strings remains his best known and most-performed work.

Carlos Ágreda is in his second year as a conducting fellow at Curtis, where he has worked closely with mentor conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin and assisted in the preparation of multiple orchestra concerts and opera productions. He leads the Curtis Opera Theatre’s double bill of Mahagonny: Ein Songspiel and The Medium at the Perelman Theater in May.