JoAnn Falletta’s Premiere Recording with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra features Michael Ludwig Performing the Violin Concertos of Dohnányi

April 14, 2008 – Naxos announced the release of the Violin Concertos of Erno Dohnányi, featuring JoAnn Falletta leading the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and soloist Michael Ludwig. JoAnn Falletta, Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Virginia Symphony, has established a reputation for conducting and recording artistically important, but seldom-heard works. Says Falletta: "I am astonished that these romantic gems are so little known and played. Both Dohnányi Violin Concertos contain all the ingredients of a blockbuster concerto - passion, drama, soaring melodies, virtuosic writing for the soloist, passage after passage of breathtaking beauty, lush orchestration, propulsion and drive. Having such an extraordinary advocate as violinist Michael Ludwig, these concertos may find their way onto concert stages all over the world. Michael plays them with the intensity, technique and glorious tone of the masters of the golden age of the violin, and makes a truly compelling case for the Dohnányi concertos."

Ernst (Ernõ) Dohnányi was born in Poszony (now Bratislava) in 1877 and became one of the leading voices of the Hungarian people. He taught at the Budapest Music Academy and played a leading part in forming the musical culture of Hungary. The unsettled political environment in Hungary made Dohnányi move to Austria in 1944, and he finally settled in the United States in 1949, teaching at Florida State University in Tallahassee, where he was active in performing, teaching and composing until his death in 1960.

Hailed by Strad Magazine for his “effortless, envy-provoking technique… sweet tone, brilliant expression, and grand style”, Michael Ludwig enjoys a multi-faceted career as a soloist, recording artist, and chamber musician. In reviewing his most recent recording of the Bruch Scottish Fantasy with the Virginia Symphony, Fanfare Magazine readily preferred it to Heifetz’s, citing Ludwig’s “tonal radiance and luminosity” and calling his phrasing “so sensitive…it could serve as an object lesson to every budding violinist”. His growing discography will soon see the addition of the Corigliano Violin Concerto with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Piano Trio of Marcel Tyberg, both to be issued by Naxos.

Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic and Virginia Symhony, Ms. Falletta is the recipient of many of the most prestigious conducting awards, including the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award for exceptionally gifted American conductors, the coveted Stokowski Competition, and the Toscanini, Ditson and Bruno Walter Awards for conducting. She is an ardent champion of music of our time, introducing over 400 works by American composers, including more than 80 world premieres, and has received nine awards from ASCAP for creative programming, as well as the American Symphony Orchestra League’s prestigious John S. Edwards Award. This spring, she will be honored to receive a 2008 ASCAP Concert Music Award.

This disc marks JoAnn Falletta’s eighth contribution to the highly acclaimed Naxos label, and her second this year to the Naxos Classical label. Her most recent Naxos Classics release, a disc of the works of Ottorino Respighi, was named an Editor’s Pick for February 2008 by Gramophone Magazine. For the Naxos American Classics Series, she has recorded works by Aaron Copland, Charles Griffes, John Corigliano, Romeo Cascarino, Frederick Converse and two discs of the works of Kenneth Fuchs, the most recent of which was released this season, following up on the Grammy-nominated American Place CD. Upcoming discs include a multi-year recording project of the lost works of Marcel Tyberg, the brilliant Italian composer and Holocaust victim. The first release in the series will be Tyberg’s Symphony No. 3. Other works to be released this year include discs of the music of Franz Schubert, Richard Strauss and John Corigliano, for Naxos.

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