Fanfare for the Common Man: Copland + World Premiere

Robert Spano, conductor, pianist, composer, and teacher, is known worldwide for the intensity of his artistry and distinctive communicative abilities, creating a sense of inclusion and warmth among musicians and audiences that is unique among American orchestras. After 20 seasons as music director, he will continue his association with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra as music director laureate. As music director of the Aspen Music Festival and School since 2011, he oversees the programming of more than 30 events and educational programs for 630 students and young performers. Principal guest conductor of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra since 2019, Robert became music director designate in April 2021, and begins an initial three-year term as music director in August 2022. For the 2021-22 season, he will continue with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, sharing the role of artistic advisor with principal guest conductor Donald Runnicles, extending their unique 20-year musical partnership.

The 2018-19 season featured Robert’s highly acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut, leading the U.S. premiere of Nico Muhly’s Marnie and the conclusion of the ASO’s two-year “LB/LB” celebration commemorating Leonard Bernstein and Ludwig van Beethoven. Recent concert highlights have included several world premiere performances, including Voy a Dormir by Bryce Dessner at Carnegie Hall with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s; George Tsontakis’s Violin Concerto No. 3 with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra; Dimitrios Skyllas’s Kyrie eleison with the BBC Symphony Orchestra; the Tuba Concerto by Jennifer Higdon, performed by Craig Knox and the Pittsburgh Symphony; Melodia, For Piano and Orchestra, by Matthew Ricketts at the Aspen Music Festival; and Miserere by ASO bassist Michael Kurth.

With a discography of critically acclaimed recordings for Telarc, Deutsche Grammophon, and ASO Media, Robert Spano has garnered four Grammy Awards and eight nominations with the Atlanta Symphony. Robert is on faculty at Oberlin Conservatory and has received honorary doctorates from Bowling Green State University, the Curtis Institute of Music, Emory University, and Oberlin. Maestro Spano is one of two classical musicians inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.

Matthew Strauss has been applauded throughout the United States as an energetic percussionist and timpanist with a diverse musical background. In addition to his position as Associate Principal Timpanist / Section Percussionist with the Houston Symphony, Mr. Strauss is an Associate Professor of Percussion at Rice University and faculty member at the Texas Music Festival at the University of Houston. Prior to his post in Houston, Mr. Strauss performed as a member of the percussion section in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra throughout the 2002-03 and 2003-04 seasons.

He also has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, to name a few. Solo appearances include performances with the Houston Symphony, Texas Music Festival Orchestra, Akron Symphony, New Hampshire Music Festival, Reading Symphony Orchestra and Delaware Symphony Orchestra. An active chamber musician, Mr. Strauss has performed with the Chicago Chamber Musicians, Da Camera of Houston, Foundation For Modern Music, Bard Festival Chamber Players, Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival, Skaneateles Music Festival, and has participated in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s contemporary chamber series, Music Now, under the batons of Pierre Boulez and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Mr. Strauss received his bachelor’s degree in Percussion Performance from the Juilliard School and his master’s degree in Performance from the Temple University. He is an alumnus of both the Tanglewood and Aspen Music Festivals and has participated in the Spoleto Music Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. Prior to his post at Rice University, Mr. Strauss taught percussion performance as a Visiting Lecturer at the Frost School of Music at University of Miami for ten years. He has presented master classes and clinics at numerous schools, festivals, and conventions such as the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, New World Symphony, Juilliard School, Aspen Music Festival, Northwestern University, Texas Bandmasters Association Convention, Conservatoire de Region in Paris, Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel, Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, Temple University, Bard Conservatory, New York University, Peabody Conservatory, Tanglewood Music Center, University of Maryland, George Mason University, Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Roosevelt University, and DePaul University. Mr. Strauss is a performing artist and clinician for Promark, Evans Heads, Zildjian Inc., and Pearl/Adams Corporation.

Praised by the New York Times for his “understated but unmistakable virtuosity” along

with a “winning combination of gentleness and fluidity,” Bulgarian percussionist Svet Stoyanov is a unique and driving force in modern percussion.

Winner of the prestigious Concert Artists Guild International Competition, Svet was also presented with the Johns Hopkins University Alumni Award. His performing career highlights feature concerto appearances with the Chicago, Seattle, American, and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras, as well as solo performances at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Verizon Hall, Shanghai Symphony Hall, and Taiwan National Concert Hall, among others. Some of the conductors he has performed with include Marin Alsop, Pierre Boulez, James Conlon, Cristian Macelaru, JoAnn Falletta, Gerard Schwarz, Oliver Knussen, and Teddy Abrams.

Svet has recorded for numerous labels, featuring Telarc, Naxos, and Bridge Records. His solo albums Percussive Counterpoint and Textures and Threads have been internationally broadcast and applauded for their artistic integrity and virtuosic ingenuity.

A passionate advocate for contemporary music, Svet has commissioned a significant body of solo and chamber works. The most recent is Sideman: a percussion concerto written for him by Grammy-winning and Musical America’s Composer of the Year Mason Bates.

Svet is a proud founding member of the groundbreaking project The Percussion Collective. This group features some of the finest percussionists in the world. With The Collective, Svet recently toured China and premiered Christopher Theofanidis’ Drum Circles Concerto with the Oregon Symphony Orchestra. The Collective will tour Europe in 2023, visiting London, Munich, Vienna, and Amsterdam.

Alongside his diverse international performing career, Svet is the director and associate professor of percussion studies at the Frost School of Music, University of Miami, where he has collaboratively built a unique, successful, and groundbreaking program.

Producing is a major role and artistic passion for Svet. As such, he recently collaborated with the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music – America’s Orchestral Contemporary Music Festival, for the 2021 and 2022 seasons.

He endorses some of the world’s finest percussion instruments and products, namely Adams, Remo, Zildjian, Pearl, and ProMark. His artistic mission is committed to the purity, virtue, and transformative power of music.