37th INTERNATIONAL MASTERCLASS
IN ORCHESTRA & OPERA CONDUCTING

with Maestro CHARLES OLIVIERI-MUNROE
(Canada)
and St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra

April 23-29, 2012

Repertoire to be studied:
- Beethoven: Symphony No. 5,
- Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 "From the New World"
- Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 "Pathetique"
- Brahms: Symphony No. 2
- Overtures - Mozart: "The Magic Flute;" Weber: "Freischutz;" Beethoven: "Egmont;" Dvorak: "Carnival"
- Concertos (in case the soloists are available) - Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor;" Tchaikovsky: "Rococo Variations;" Brahms: Violin Concerto

Preliminary Workshop Schedule:
DAY 1 & 2 - Piano Session
DAY 3 & 4 - Chamber Orchestra
DAY 5 & 6 - Symphony Orchestra
DAY 7 - Dress Reheasal and Final public concert

All active participants will conduct at the Final (public) Concert.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:
1) This workshop is open to conductors at all levels of proficiency, from beginners to professionals. There is no age limit. The official language is ENGLISH.
2) Participants will work with the orchestra for four days. Each participant will conduct the orchestra every day for at least 30 minutes (total 2 hrs on the podium, plus the dress rehearsal and the concert).
3) Accommodation at a hotel or a private apartment at a reasonable price (usually around €40 per day) can be arranged on your behalf.
4) Assistance with Visa issuance (i.e. Invitation Letter) for Russia is available at no additional cost (required for most nationals). You can download the Visa Assistance Form from this website.
5) All sessions can be videotaped (please bring your own cameras and DV tapes).
6) Final concert will be videotaped - the performance DVD will be sent to each participant free of charge (i.e. included in the price of the masterclass)
7) Please note that, if you are to bring a musical instrument and/or bow into Russia, you may need to declare it with the customs, as well as give a photo of your instrument.

Active Participant Fee - €1,800 (approx. US$2,400)
Auditors (Passive Participants) - €650 (approx. US$975)
Deadline for Applications: March 1, 2011

The Workshop Fee covers all masterclass sessions.
A Certificate of Completion will be issued to each participant after the final concert.
Places are limited - please inquire today.

About the Faculty:
Maestro CHARLES OLIVIERI-MUNROE (Canada)

Charles Olivieri-Munroe is Chief Conductor of the North Czech Philharmonic in Teplice. He has recently held positions alongside Teplice as Principal Conductor of the Colorado 'Crested Butte' Festival in the USA and Artistic Director of the Inter-Regionales Symfonie Orchester in Germany and he has previously been Chief Conductor of the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra in Bratislava (2001-2004), Resident Conductor of the Brno Philharmonic (1995-97) and of the Karlsbad Symphony Orchestra (1993-95) and Permanent Conductor of Brno Chamber Opera (1992-94). His international career began after he won a number of international competitions which culminated in him winning First Prize in the 2000 'Prague Spring International Music Festival' Conducting Competition where he also won the prizes offered by Supraphon Records, City of Prague and by Czech Radio. Under his leadership the North Czech Philharmonic has seen a dramatic increase in its size, budget and international reputation in the last thirteen years with highly praised recordings, commissions of new music, world premieres and live broadcasts. His recordings with SONY, RCA Red Seal, NAXOS, SMS Classical and Naïve Records can be heard on many of the world's radio stations.

In season 2009/10 Charles Olivieri-Munroe made extensive tours with the Prague Chamber Orchestra (Asia), the Prague Philharmonic (France) and Orchestra del Conservatorio di Svizzera-Italiana (Switzerland). During the course of the season he guest conducted major orchestras in Amsterdam, Taipei, Warsaw, Prague, Bratislava and Istanbul as well as orchestras in Germany and Spain.

Charles Olivieri-Munroe launches his 2010/11 season with an opera production of Verdi's Aida at the festival Lago di Como and makes several debuts this season in Japan (Nagoya Symphony Orchestra), France (l'Orchestre National des Pays de La Loire), with the Südwestfalen Philharmonie, Dessau Philharmonic, Moscow Philharmonic, Santiago Symphony in Chile and the Odense Symphony Orchestra in Denmark. In January 2011 Olivieri-Munroe returns to Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie for a German tour and tours with the Israel Chamber Orchestra in June 2011.

Charles Olivieri-Munroe's hold on public imagination stems from a combination of talent and charisma. He is increasingly recognized in the international press for his innovative programming, interpretation of Slavic repertoire and his passion for purity of orchestral sound. His career takes him across five continents, appearing with many of the world's finest orchestras including the Israel Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Danish National Radio Symphony, Budapest Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic, Royal Brussels Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Oregon Symphony Orchestra and orchestras in New York, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Athens, Istanbul, Lisbon, Tokyo, Seoul and Mexico City.

In the opera house, Charles Olivieri-Munroe has appeared at the Berlin Komische Oper conducting Verdi's Falstaff, at Il Teatro Fenice in Venice, in Amsterdam where he presented the Netherlands National Ballet in a crossover production entitled Body and Voice and during his time with the Brno Chamber Opera when he led such diverse productions as Handel's Acis and Galatea and Czech composer Ilya Hurnik's Diogenes. He made his debut in Milan conducting Mozart's Don Giovanni and he returns there this summer when he conducts Aida in the festival Lago di Como. He recently made his debut at the Prague National Opera with Dvorak's Stabat Mater and opened the Prague State Opera's 2009/10 season conducting a pair of spectacular gala performances of music by Bohuslav Martinu. This season he was the music director in Warsaw for a new production of Stravinsky's Rake's Progress.

Charles Olivieri-Munroe grew up in Toronto where he studied the piano with the eminent pedagogue, Boris Berlin, at the Royal Conservatory of Music and at the University of Toronto. Following his graduation in 1992 he won three Ontario scholarships to study conducting with Otakar Trhlik at the Janacek Academy of Music in Brno, Czechoslovakia. He also attended masterclasses with Jiri Belohlavek and spent two summers (1995/96) at L'Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena studying with Ilja Musin and Yuri Temirkanov. In 1997 Charles Olivieri-Munroe was a recipient of the $20,000 career grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.

Today, Charles Olivieri-Munroe is a key personality with the major musical institutions in Prague including the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Prague Spring International Festival and Prague Academy of Music where he has recently been appointed to the conducting faculty by Jiri Belohlavek.
He has discovered and given premiere performances of music by the famous Czech composers Martinu (Nocturne), Karel Ancerl (Sinfonieta), Smetana (From My Life) and Janacek's original version of the opera Jenufa.

About the Orchestra:
ST. PETERSBURG STATE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

The Saint Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1967 under the directorship of Nikolai Rabinovich and has had many outstanding conductors from the St Petersburg school involved from its foundation such as Karl Eliasberg and Edward Grikurov. They set a very high musical standard which was then strengthened by their conducting students of the next generation - Yuri Temirkanov, Mariss Jansons, Y. Simonov, E. Serov, E Kolobov, R Martynov and others. The orchestra has undergone much change since its inception including a change of name and leadership but through all this time it has been developing its repertoire strengths and building a devoted audience. In 1996, the orchestra was given the honorary title of an Academic Orchestra.

The orchestra’s repertoire is extremely diverse ranging from the Baroque music of Handel and Vivaldi right through to music of the 20 th century. Since 1991, the orchestra holds their subscription series in the Mirror Hall of the Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace. In addition, the orchestra often performs in the Philharmonic Hall. Apart from standard concerts, the orchestra offers many educational programmes aimed at children and young people with repertoire including the classical masterpieces, Russian repertoire and music from foreign composers.

The regular commissioning and performance of new compositions is testament to the high standard of the orchestra with many new works written especially for the orchestra. There is strong support for local composers but also collaborations with many foreign composers who have also dedicated their works to this orchestra.

The Saint Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra tours regularly all over the world and has had successful concerts in Spain, Japan, Mexico, Germany, China and Finland. In the autumn of 1998, the orchestra toured to the USA and over 2 months held close to 50 concerts in different cities from the far east to the west coasts.

Many distinguished soloists and conductors have worked with the orchestra over the years such as Sviatoslav Richter, Elena Obrastsova, Yevgeni Nesterenko, Natalia Gutman, Eliso Virsaladze, Mikhail Vaiman, Yevgeniy Mogilevsky, O. Nikole, Montserrat Kabale, Pavel Egorov and Viktor Tretyakov.

From 2004 to 2007, the orchestra appointed the young, dynamic Vasily Petrenko as the new Chief Conductor following on from Ravil Martynov. From 2007 the principal conductor of the orchestrais Maestro Alexander Titov, Honorary Artist of Russia.

For more info about the orchestra, visit www.spb-orchestra.ru.