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Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra | Miguel Harth-Bedoya | Michael Shih Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra Association The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra has grown to become one of the most successful orchestras of its size in the United States, serving an audience of 250,000, with an annual budget of $12.3 million, a 52-week season and a $28 million endowment. Under the artistic leadership of Music Director Miguel Harth-Bedoya—one of the most exciting conductors to emerge on the U.S. and international conducting scene in recent years—and as the principal resident company of the acoustically superb Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Performance Hall, the Orchestra presents a series of symphonic, pops and special concerts, with a subscriber base of 8,500. It also serves as the orchestra for Texas Ballet Theater, Fort Worth Opera, the Southwestern Seminary Oratorio Chorus and the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The Orchestra's annual five-week summer music festival, Concerts In The Garden, features an array of performances and artists, and has grown to be one of the largest and most successful summer outdoor festival of its kind in Texas, attracting an annual audience of nearly 45,000. The Orchestra's extensive and diverse educational and outreach program Adventures in Music serves more than 60,000 children, youth and adults each season through free or low-cost performances at Bass Performance Hall and in a variety of venues throughout the community. The FWSO is also the only orchestra in Texas to participate in Carnegie Hall's award-winning Weill Music Institute Communities LinkUP! program, enhancing the music education of more than 6,000 fourth-grade students annually. Recently released recordings include Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 in E. Minor, Opus 64, a bilingual version (Spanish and English) of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf featuring actor Michael York, and Sentimiento Latino, with Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flores (Decca). An upcoming CD with Asleep At The Wheel recorded live at Bass Performance Hall will be released in October. The FWSO and all Orchestra activities are governed by a volunteer board of directors and a 35-member executive committee. Additional volunteer leadership comes from the 334-member Symphony League of Fort Worth, Inc. The administrative staff, led by President Ann Koonsman, consists of 33 employees.
Recognized as one of the most exciting conductors on the international scene, Miguel Harth-Bedoya has served as music director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra since 2000. Under his leadership, both the quality of the orchestra and its role in the community have grown significantly. In the words of the Dallas Morning News, "The transformation of the FWSO under music director Miguel Harth-Bedoya continues to amaze." The Fort Worth Symphony, conducted by Mr. Harth-Bedoya, will make its Carnegie Hall debut in January 2008. Recently released recordings of the Fort Worth Symphony include an all-Tchaikovsky CD and the first-ever bilingual recording of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf featuring narrations in Spanish and English with Michael York. Sentimiento Latino, with Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flores (Decca) and Alma del Perú, a recording of Peruvian traditional music with the Orquesta Filarmonica de Lima (Filarmonika), are also available. An active guest conductor, Mr. Harth-Bedoya has appeared with the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas, Detroit, Milwaukee, Montreal, St. Louis, Seattle, Toronto, and Utah as well as the Minnesota Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. In Europe, he has conducted the London BBC Symphony, Berlin Symphony, Birmingham Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Madrid National Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, NDR Orchestra/Hamburg, Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestre de Paris, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, WDR Orchestra/Cologne, and the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, among others. Festival appearances include Adelaide, Aspen, Avanti (Helsinki), BBC Proms, Blossom, Hollywood Bowl (for which he received an Emmy), Interlochen, Oregon Bach, Ravinia and Tanglewood. Upcoming and recent performances include subscription concert debuts with the Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, and the National Symphony as well as concerts with the Birmingham Symphony (UK), Sydney Symphony and the orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and Milwaukee. Equally at home in opera, Miguel Harth-Bedoya has appeared with the Minnesota Opera conducting Tosca and the Santa Fe Opera conducting Osvaldo Golijov's Ainadamar with Dawn Upshaw in the leading role, a production that was also presented at Lincoln Center in 2006. Mr. Harth-Bedoya will return to the Minnesota Opera to conduct Un Ballo in Maschera and other productions during the next three years. Next season, he will make his debut with the Canadian Opera Company directing a production of the Barber of Seville. As a result of his exceptional tenure as Associate Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Mr. Harth-Bedoya returns every year to conduct a subscription week with that orchestra. Winner of the 2002 Seaver/NEA Conductors Award, he has also served as Music Director of the Auckland Philharmonia, Eugene Symphony, and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Lima. Born in Peru, Miguel Harth-Bedoya makes his home in Fort Worth with his wife Maritza and their three children, Elena, Emilio, and Elisa. For more information, please visit www.miguelharth-bedoya.com, www.filarmonika.com, and www.fwsymphony.org. Violinist Michael Shih, in his seventh season as concertmaster of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, has performed throughout the United States and his native Taiwan, as well as on tours of Canada, France, Germany, Costa Rica, Honduras, Japan, and Korea. A U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts, he was a winner in the Naumburg International Violin Competition and Artists International's Auditions, the latter award resulting in his New York recital debut at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall in 1992. He has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Hollywood Bowl, Little Orchestra Society at Avery Fisher Hall, Williamsburg Symphonia, New York Youth Symphony, San Pedro Sula Symphony in Honduras, Taipei Symphony at Taiwan's National Concert Hall, and with the symphony orchestras of Dallas, Hartford, and New Amsterdam. He has also made a solo appearance at the prestigious Chiehshou Hall Concert at the Office of the President of Taiwan. An avid performer of chamber music, he has collaborated with such artists as Leon Fleisher, Sharon Isbin, Jaime Laredo, Cho-Liang Lin, Yo-Yo Ma, Michael Tree, and Charles Wadsworth. From 1992 to 2002, he was first violinist of the Whitman Quartet, formerly graduate quartet-in-residence at the Juilliard School and winner of the Naumburg Chamber Music and Catherine Filene Shouse Debut Artists awards. Music festival appearances include Aspen, Bard, Chamber Music Northwest, Chautauqua, La Jolla, Lincoln Center, Ravinia, Spoleto USA, and Mostly Mozart. He has also appeared at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Chamber Music International in Dallas, and the Van Cliburn Foundation's "Cliburn at the Modern" series with composers John Corigliano and Lowell Liebermann. He is the associate artistic director of the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth. Radio and television credits include NPR's Performance Today, NBC's Today Show, and Japan's NHK Television. He holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Dorothy DeLay and Hyo Kang. Other teachers include Chiu-Sen Chen, Masao Kawasaki, Shue-Tee Lee, and Margaret Pardee. He was on the violin faculty at the Lucy Moses School for Music and Dance in New York City from 1995 to 2001. He was an adjunct instructor in violin at Texas Christian University in the 2004-05 academic year. Currently, he is an adjunct associate professor at Southern Methodist University. Mr. Shih plays a 1710 Antonio Stradivari violin, generously on loan to the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra Association by Mr. and Mrs. William S. Davis of Fort Worth, Texas. |
