Music And The Arts ‘Orchestra Builder9 To Give Concert

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31946, 25 March 1969, Page 8

Music And The Arts ‘Orchestra Builder 9 To Give Concert

“Champion Orchestra Builder in America” is pne title earned by George Barati, the first of the year’s overseas conductors with the N.Z.B.C. Symphony Orchestra, who will conduct the orchestra in two Christchurch concerts on April 18 and 19.

Hungarian-born and an honours graduate of the Franz Liszt Academy, Budapest, Barati began his career as a cellist with the Budapest Concert Orchestra. His career as a conductor began in the United States and included performances with a wide range of musical organisations. In 1950 he became permanent conductor of the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and it was there that he displayed his remarkable flair as an orchestral architect. Among his successes with that ensemble were its development into a worldclass music unit, the introduction of scholarships for orchestra members, world premieres of contemporary music, and the making of commercial recordings. In addition, he established a youth orchestra and arranged 75 concerts annually for children from kindergarten age up to university level. During this period he also made frequent guest conducting appearances with leading European, London, North and South American and Japanese orchestras. Last year he became director of the Montalvo Association in Saratoga. California. Barati’s international pro- 1 minence as a conductor has tended to obscure his equal; talent for composition. As al composer he has won many awards and his Chamber Concerto has been recorded by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. At the moment he is finishing three commissions, two for the State of Hawaii and the other for the Berlin musician, Siegfried Behrend. He has been successful also in recordings, and just a few weeks ago conducted the Vienna State Opera Orchestra and Chorus in Bach's St Luke Passion and two Haydn Masses.

In the April 18 concert. George Barati will present Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, a work for orchestra with electronic sound by Otto Luening: the Bernstein Overture, Candide; and, with

Julian Olevsky as soloist, Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. The next night’s programme will feature the Russian soprano, Zara Dolukhanova,

, in a Bach Cantata; and there ■ will be a Berlioz overture, Schumann's Second Sym- > phony, and the symphonic i poem. Phaeton, by Saint- , Saens.