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Title
Waukesha Symphony Orchestra - 'Mozart was here' Season
Description
ALEXANDER PLATT has forged a unique, adventurous career among the younger American conductors. He is Music Director of the Waukesha Symphony in Wisconsin and the Marion Indiana Philharmonic, and recently concluded twelve years as Music Director of the Racine Symphony Orchestra; to all three ensembles he has brought an unprecedented combination of artistic, educational, and financial success. Alexander is also Resident Conductor and Music Advisor at Chicago Opera Theater, recently recognized as one of America's most inventive opera companies. Making an international reputation "at the front rank of Britten conductors"(The Financial Times), he recently led the triumphant Chicago premieres of Britten's DEATH IN VENICE and A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM; in 2006-8 he leads the Chicago premieres of John Adams' NIXON IN CHINA and Britten's OWEN WINGRAVE, along with the classic double-bill of BLUEBEARD'S CASTLE and ERWARTUNG. A successful Cedille Records artist at a time of privation for the industry, Alexander conducted the world premiere recording of Kurka's THE GOOD SOLDIER SCHWEIK for that label, to near-unanimous praise, and is now winning accolades for his new recording with violinist Rachel Barton and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He also spends his summers as Music Director of the Maverick Concerts in Woodstock, New York, the oldest summer chamber-music festival in America; there he follows in the footsteps of such legendary musicians as William Kroll, Leon Barzin and Georges Barrere as conductor, artistic director and host.
In all these efforts Alexander Platt has been hailed for his ability to weave his roles as educator and musical evangelist into his work. Examples of this are his enduring visiting professorship at Carthage College; his new "Success Through Music" program at the Waukesha Symphony, for underserved youth in Waukesha and Milwaukee, building on twelve years of extraordinary educational growth in Racine; at Chicago Opera Theater, his leading the world premieres of both the Tony Kushner/Maurice Sendak BRUNDIBAR and his own adaptation of Tchaikovsky's IOLANTA, working with a broad spectrum of young singers from Chicago neighborhoods; his frequent appearances on Chicago's WFMT; and everywhere, his widely-admired pre-performance talks from the concert stage. Further projects in broadcasting are now in the planning stages.
Alexander Platt was educated at Yale College, where he graduated winning most of the major music prizes, and later, as a Marshall Scholar, at King's College Cambridge; while at Cambridge he reconstructed the lost Chamber Version of the Mahler Fourth Symphony, which has since become a classic of the repertoire.
