The Cleveland Orchestra [Visit the Orchestra home page] and Music Director Franz Welser-Möst will make the first of regular European Festival Tours together from August 19-27, 2004, including performances at the Edinburgh Festival and the beginning of an annual series of appearances at the Lucerne Festival. The Cleveland Orchestra is the only American orchestra to appear at the 2004 Lucerne Festival. With the Lucerne Festival and Carnegie Hall as partners, the Orchestra will give the world premiere of a work by Sir Harrison Birtwistle, commencing the Roche Commissions, a three-year initiative involving the commissioning and premieres of works by three different composers.

During the tour, the Orchestra and Mr. Welser-Möst will perform a total of eight concerts in four cities: three concerts at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland; three concerts at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland; one concert at the Rheingau Music Festival in Wiesbaden, Germany; and one concert in Dublin, Ireland. The Dublin concert will be the Orchestra’s first performance in Ireland, and the Rheingau Music Festival concert will be the Orchestra’s first performance in Wiesbaden.

Three different programs will be performed during the tour: Rossini’s Overture to William Tell, Haydn’s Symphony No. 100 (“Military”), and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15 will be performed in Lucerne on August 20 and in Edinburgh on August 24. The premiere performances of Birtwistle’s Night’s Black Bird, as well as Birtwistle’s The Shadow of Night and Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 (“The Great”), will be given in Lucerne on August 21 and in Edinburgh on August 25. Between the two Birtwistle works, John Dowland’s “In Darkness Let Me Dwell,” for voice and lute, will be performed. A short motif from Dowland’s song is employed in Birtwistle’s music on this program. Debussy’s Jeux and Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 will be performed in Wiesbaden on August 19, in Lucerne on August 22, in Edinburgh on August 26, and in Dublin on August 27.

This will be the second international tour by The Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst. It follows their critically acclaimed Vienna Residency in October and November 2003, which included five concerts at the Musikverein in Vienna and a concert at the Brucknerhaus in Linz.

The Cleveland Orchestra has a long history of appearances at the Lucerne Festival and the Edinburgh Festival, beginning with four-concert engagements at both festivals in 1967 under the direction of George Szell. The Orchestra returned to the Lucerne Festival for single concerts in 1979, 1990, and 1994. In March 1996, the Orchestra performed three concerts at the Lucerne Easter Festival. Following the 1967 Edinburgh Festival appearances, the Orchestra returned to that festival for three concerts in 1994, two concerts in 1996, and two concerts in 2000.

Visit the ideastream in Vienna web page, covering the Cleveland Orchestra's 2003 Vienna Residency.