Segal and Ponti back for NZSO concerts

Press, 28 August 1979, Page 23

Segal and Ponti back for NZSO concerts

Uri Segal, a favourite conductor with both players and audiences, will return to lead the New Zealand Symphony orchestra in two concerts in the Christchurch Town Hall next week. Both concerts presented on Saturday will feature Michael Ponti as piano soloist. On Friday, September 7 the orchestra will present a lunch-time concert, beginning at 12.15 p.m., and on Saturday, September 8, a subscription concert will begin at 8.00 p.m.

Friday’s programme will offer a delightful selection of music — Brahms’ “Variations on the St Anthony Chorale,” Ravel’s “Mother Goose” Suite, Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and Verdi’s “The Force of Destiny” Overture.

Two works will be presented on Saturday night — Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (Choral) with Malvina Major, Flora Edwards, Anthony Benfell, and Maurice Taylor as soloists, and the Christchurch Harmonic Choir singing the choruses. Uri Segal was born in Jerusalem in 1944, and from the age of nine studied viola, composition, and conducting at the Jerusalem Conservatoire. In 1966 he went to England to study at the Guildhall

School of Music where he won a series of prizes, including the Ricordi Prize. After a further period of study under Jean Fournet in Hilversum and tuition in Siena he completed his Guildhall studies while receiving guidance from Haitink and Horenstein.

In 1969 he won first prize at the Mitropoulos International Conducting Competition in New York. He was appointed assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for the 1969-70 season, under Georg Szell. Since then his conducting

has been championed by a number of prominent musical figures, such as Bernstein and Barenboim.

Uri Segal moved to London in 1970, and was soon conducting leading London orchestras. His European debut was in 1972 and soon after that he was appointed chief guest conductor of the South German Radio Orchestra in Stuttgart. In addition to his regular ennearances with this orchestra, he conducted major orchestras in Berlin, Vienna, Amsterdam, Paris, and other European cities. He also conducted the Israel Philharmonic.

In 1972 Uri Segal made his American debut with the Chicago Symphony and since then he has made several concert tours of the United States.

His first recording was an orchestral record with the Suisse Romande Orchestra. He records for Decca and EMI, and in 1975 conducted the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s highly successful recording Of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony. Recently he was appointed chief conductor of the Philharmonia Hungarica, the German orchestra which, in the early 70s, recorded the complete Haydn symphonies under Antal Dorati. After the New Zealand tour Uri Segal will return to England for concerts

with the London Philharmonic Orchestra before taking the Philharmonia Hungarica on a tour of Ireland. Michael Ponti was bom in 1937 in Freiburg, Germany, but grew up in America.

He began piano studies when he was five, and at 11 he performed the complete Bach “Well-Tem-pered Clavier” in public. At 14 he won a major American competition for pianists under 18, and at 16 he performed the Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 1 with the National Symphony Orchestra. In 1955 he returned to Germany with his family and continued his studies. At 21 he made his first

major professional appearance, as a stand-in at less than a day’s notice for Andor Foldes, performing the Beethoven Third Concerto with the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra. Between 1958 and 1964 Ponti appeared more than 150 times in West Germany.

Also during that period, he won many of the top international competitions, including first prize in the Competition of German Conservatories in 1959, and prizes in the Casella Competition in Naples, the International Competition in Naples, the International Competition of German Broadcasting Stations in Munich, and the important Busoni Contest in Italy.