INDIANAPOLIS— The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra begins a thrilling 2024-25 fall season with a spectacular Opening Night Gala program. Take a tour through Italy as we welcome back the ISO’s sixth Music Director, Mario Venzago, with special guest pianist Conrad Tao. Don’t miss this unforgettable premiere experience of the fall concert season in Indianapolis. Tickets for the concert are available at the Box Office or via the ISO’s website.
The ISO welcomes pianist Conrad Tao to tackle Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Former ISO Music Director Mario Venzago leads a program that includes Rossini’s Overture to William Tell, Boccherini’s “Retreat by Night in Madrid,” and Verdi’s “Ballet for the Queen” from Don Carlo.
“The ISO is excited to celebrate the 2024 Opening Night Gala with star pianist Conrad Tao and former ISO music director Mario Venzago,” said James M. Johnson, CEO. “This thrilling collaboration marks the beginning of a fantastic new season, and we look forward to sharing this unforgettable musical experience with our community.”
Program:
Overture to William Tell
Gioachino Rossini
“Retreat by Night in Madrid”
Luigi Boccherini/Luciano Berio
“Ballet for the Queen” from Don Carlo
Giuseppe Verdi
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Sergei Rachmaninoff
The Gala, endowed by Christel DeHaan, is the ISO’s largest fundraising event of the year and is featured as part of the IU Health Plans Classical Series. Proceeds from the reception and dinner support ISO programs and purchases may be tax deductible, in part.
Your gift helps provide for the following:
- Hire and retain our full-time, professional musicians.
- Host talented guest artists, soloists, and conductors.
- Support excellent artistic programming and visionary performances through the ISO’s classical, Pops, and film series, AES Indiana Yuletide Celebration, Kroger Symphony on the Prairie, Sphinx performances, and other special concerts.
- Develop innovative educational programs including the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra, Teddy Bear Series, and Discovery Concerts, to create life-long relationships with music.
- Maintain the ISO as one of downtown Indianapolis’s leading economic and cultural community assets.
- Preserve the ISO’s historic Hilbert Circle Theatre home.
Performance begins at 5:30 p.m., September 28, 2024, at Hilbert Circle Theatre. Doors open at 4:30 p.m. For information regarding the policies of the Hilbert Circle Theatre, please visit the ISO website.
About Conrad Tao
Pianist and composer Conrad Tao has been dubbed “the kind of musician who is shaping the future of classical music” by New York Magazine and an artist of “probing intellect and open-hearted vision” by the New York Times. A soloist with leading orchestras in the traditional repertoire, Tao possesses an encyclopedic artistic approach and vision and has a stunning array of innovative and impactful projects.
Conrad’s 2024–25 season includes a return to Carnegie Hall in recital performing Debussy’s12 Études, alongside Keyed In, a work arranged and improvised by Tao on the Lumatone. He also returns to the San Francisco Symphony to perform Tchaikovsky with Nicholas Collon, the Dallas Symphony to perform Mozart with Jaap van Zweden, the St. Louis Symphony to perform Saint-Saëns with David Danzmayr, and the Baltimore Symphony to perform Mozart with Jonathon Heyward.
Further appearances include performances with the Seoul Philharmonic and NDR Hannover with Ingo Metzmacher. He also continues his collaboration with award-winning dancer Caleb Teicher on a nationwide U.S. tour.
A Warner Classics recording artist, Tao’s debut disc Voyages was declared a “spiky debut” by the New Yorker’s Alex Ross. Of the album, NPR wrote: “Tao proves himself to be a musician of deep intellectual and emotional means.” His next album, Pictures, with works by David Lang, Toru Takemitsu, Elliott Carter, Mussorgsky, and Tao himself, was hailed by the New York Times as “a fascinating album [by] a thoughtful artist and dynamic performer . . . played with enormous imagination, color, and command.” His third album, American Rage, featuring works by Julia Wolfe, Frederic Rzewski, and Aaron Copland, was released in the fall of 2019. In 2021, Tao and brass quartet The Westerlies released Bricolage, an album of improvisations and experiments recorded in a small cabin in rural New Hampshire in June 2019.
Tao was born in Urbana, Illinois, in 1994. He studied piano with Emilio del Rosario in Chicago, Yoheved Kaplinsky in New York, and composition with Christopher Theofanidis.
About Mario Venzago
Mario Venzago was, until summer 2021 and for 11 years, the Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Bern Symphony Orchestra. Before, he led as Principal Conductor or General Music Director the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the Basque National Orchestra in San Sebastian, the Basel Symphony Orchestra, the Graz Opera und Graz Philharmonic Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Frankfurt (now Bremen), the Theatre and Philharmonic Orchestra of the City of Heidelberg and the Musikkollegium Winterthur.
From 2010 to 2014, he was Principal Conductor of the Royal Northern Sinfonia; from 2010 to 2019, he was Artist in the Association of the Finnish Tapiola Sinfonietta; and from 2000 to 2003, he was Artistic Director of the Baltimore Summer Fest as successor to Pinchas Zukermann and David Zinman.
In addition to his activity as a conductor, Mario Venzago has recently increasingly devoted himself to his passion for composing. In 2021, he premiered his Violin Concerto with Soyoung Yoon and the Bern Symphony Orchestra. Currently, various works by Mario Venzago, including two operas, are in preparation for publication by Universal Edition.
