News Release

Note: For background and downloadable photos, see end of release.

The Cleveland Orchestra to perform
at UNC’s Memorial Hall March 18

CHAPEL HILL –  More than 100 members strong, The Cleveland Orchestra will perform with guest conductor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on March 18.

The 7:30 p.m. performance in the Beasley-Curtis Auditorium at Memorial Hall is presented by Carolina Performing Arts. Miguel Harth-Bedoya, music director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, will be guest conductor.

The program will feature selections by Pyotr Tchaikovsky (Russian, 1840-1893), Manuel de Falla (Spanish, 1876-1946) and Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov (Russian, 1844-1908).

Under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst, The Cleveland Orchestra has toured nationwide and in Europe. It is one of the first American orchestras to have biennial residencies at the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria, which is famous for its acoustics and considered by some to be among the finest music halls in the world. The orchestra also makes several appearances at European festivals, including annual residencies at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland.

In the United States, the orchestra has toured both coasts and the Midwest and has performed frequently in Carnegie Hall. This year, orchestra members began a 10-year residency project at Miami Performing Arts Center, consisting of three weeks of concerts and educational collaborations each winter.

The orchestra was founded in 1918 under the direction of Russian-American conductor Nikolai Sokoloff, who initiated an extensive domestic touring schedule, educational concerts, commercial recordings and radio broadcasts.

During the first season, concerts were in the city’s Grays Armory, now a historic landmark. The orchestra later moved to Cleveland’s Masonic Auditorium, and in 1931 to its current home, Severance Hall, in the city’s University Circle area.

Tickets for the performance, $35-$125, are available online at www.carolinaperformingarts.org, by calling (919) 843-3333 or from the Memorial Hall Box Office on Cameron Avenue, open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. Tickets for Carolina students are $35. Tickets also are on sale for other performances. For more information, visit www.carolinaperformingarts.org.

- 30 -

Note: For a media kit and downloadable photos, visit www.carolinaperformingarts.org/media.

Carolina Performing Arts contacts: Don Smith, (919) 843-3119, donsmith@email.unc.edu; Jennifer Warner, (919) 966-3834, jenniferwarner@unc.edu