JoAnn Falletta, conductor, A. Zemlinsky “The Mermaid”
“The piece is Zemlinsky’s The Mermaid, a piece that I fell in love with years ago. It is based on the Andersen Fairy Tale (with the tragic ending, not the Disney one), and basically was Zemlinksy's "catharsis" for having been cruelly discarded by Alma Schindler, the great love of his life, for Gustav Mahler. He identified with the mermaid who is cast off by the prince she saved.
Actually on the page is a poem I wrote which explains a bit more of what is a gentle obsession I have with the piece. I have brought it to different orchestras and everyone has completely fallen under the spell of its charm and its heartbreak”.
– JoAnn Falletta
Scroll down for biography.
JoAnn Falletta
Interview with the conductor
JoAnn Falletta
The New York Times acclaimed JoAnn Falletta ‘one of the finest conductors of her generation’ and was recently named one of the “Fifty Great Conductors”, past and present, by Gramophone Magazine. With her appointment as Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, Ms. Falletta became the first woman to lead a major American ensemble and is credited with bringing that orchestra to an “unprecedented level of national and international prominence”. Internationally, she has made conducting appearances in Europe, Asia, South America, Poland and Sweden. Her mentors include Leonard Bernstein, Jorge Mester, Sixten Ehrling and Semyon Byychkov. She has led seminars for women conductors and has had great success working with young musicians conducting at the top conservatories such as The Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of music, Mannes, and the Cleveland Institute of Music. Under her direction, the Buffalo Symphony has won 2 Grammys and is one of the leading recording orchestras for the Naxos label. She has introduced over 600 works by American composers.
> Return to The Contemporary Gallery or click below
Anne Akiko Meyers
Victoria Bond
Giuliano Carmignola
George Crumb
Misha Dichter
Simone Dinnerstein
Stanley Drucker
JoAnne Falletta
Renée Fleming
Richard Goode
Sean Hickey
Benjamin Hochman
Yo Yo Ma
Anne-Sophie Mutter
Itzhak Perlman
Eve Queler
Philippe Quint
Gerard Schwarz
Peter Serkin
Arnold Steinhardt
Benita Valente
André Watts