last minute substitute for oregon symphony concerts

Just got this news from the Oregon Symphony press office:

Guest conductor Alondra de la Parra has been forced to withdraw from the Oregon Symphony’s “Thomas Lauderdale Plays Grieg” Classical series concerts Feb. 26-28 for personal reasons. Young British conductor Michael Francis – who is quickly earning a reputation as the man to call when high-profile orchestras need a last-minute replacement – will fill in, making his Oregon Symphony debut. Artistic Administrator Charles Calmer learned of the cancellation shortly after noon yesterday. After several hours on the phone with conductors’ agents and managers he had contracted Maestro Francis, and Symphony librarians and staffers were at work securing plane reservations from London and forwarding large files of the scores to be performed this weekend. [note: you may remember that Francis was included in a list of “Young Conductors to Watch” at the Daily Beast]

There is no change in the program. Francis will lead the orchestra in a concert that includes Igor Stravinsky’s Four Norwegian Moods; Franz Schubert’s chamber-like Symphony No 5; Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto with Pink Martini founder Thomas Lauderdale as piano soloist; and Mexican composer Arturo Márquez’s Danzón No. 2. The program will be performed four times – at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday and 8 p.m. Monday at downtown Portland’s Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall – before Francis and the orchestra travel to Salem for a repeat performance at 8 p.m. Tuesday in Willamette University’s Smith Hall.

Francis is a rising star in the classical world following a series of dramatic successes as a last-minute podium substitute with major orchestras at high-profile concerts. He first captured attention in 2006 when he stepped out of the bass section of the London Symphony Orchestra — where he’d been performing for three years – and into a rehearsal of Shostakovich Symphony No. 4 as an emergency podium substitute while the orchestra was on tour.

Three successive emergencies followed in 2007, as Francis again got the call to fill in again: With 12 hours notice he replaced Valery Gergiev for the BBC’s Gubaidulina Festival at London’s . . . Barbican; one month later, on two hours notice, he replaced John Adams in a performance of Adams’ own works with the London Symphony at the Philharmonie Luxembourg; and in January 2009, he was asked to replace André Previn.

In 2008, on New Year’s Eve he was asked to have two distinct programs ready for four concerts the following week with violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and Germany’s Stuttgart Radio Symphony. As a result of his success and the critical praise which followed, the Stuttgart orchestra immediately hired Francis to conduct concerts in June 2009 and March 2010. In April 2010 he again joined forces with Mutter, conducting a series of concerts in Tokyo and Taiwan, and in November 2010 he made his debut with the New York Philharmonic, conducting the world premiere of Wolfgang Rihm’s Lichtes Spiel with Mutter as soloist.

Tickets for the three Portland performances are available at the Oregon Symphony Ticket Office, 923 SW Washington St., in downtown Portland. Ticket office hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. Tickets may also be purchased by phone at (503) 228-1353 or (800) 228-7343 during the same hours, at the concert hall box office starting two hours before the performance, or online at any time from the orchestra’s web site, OrSymphony.org.