About Pierre Monteux
French-born conductor
Pierre Monteux 1875-1964 premiered many masterworks of the last century,
including Maurice Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé,
Claude Debussy's Jeux, and Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and Petrushka.
With the outbreak of World War I, Monteux was called up for military
service, but was discharged in 1916, and travelled to the United States.
There he took charge of the French repertoire at the Metropolitan Opera
in New York City from 1917 to 1919. He also conducted the American première
of Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Golden Cockerel at the Metropolitan Opera.
He then moved to the Boston Symphony Orchestra 1919-1924. He had a major
effect on the Boston ensemble's sound, and was able to fashion the orchestra
as he pleased after a strike led to thirty of its members leaving. He also
introduced a number of new works in Boston, notably works by French composers.
Monteux became an American citizen in 1942 and made his permanent residence
in Hancock, Maine, the childhood home of his wife Doris Hodgkins Monteux
1894-1984. In 1943, Pierre and Doris Monteux founded a summer school for
conductors and orchestra musicians in Hancock, inspired in part by Monteux's
earlier conducting classes in France. Musicians came from all over the
world to Hancock to study with their beloved "Maître." Monteux
once said: Conducting is not enough. I must create something. I am not
a composer, so I will create fine young musicians. There he taught such
future conductors as Lorin Maazel, Neville Marriner, André Previn
and David Zinman. He made a nostalgic return to San Francisco in 1960 to
guest conduct the orchestra and to record Richard Wagner's Siegfried Idyll
and Richard Strauss's Death and Transfiguration for RCA Victor, the only
stereophonic recordings he made with his former orchestra. From 1961 to
1964 he was principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. He was
86 when he was invited to take the post, and he famously accepted on condition
that he had a 25-year contract, with a 25-year option of renewal. In his
last studio sessions Monteux recorded a disc with the LSO and his son,
the flautist Claude Monteux, the only gramophone recording Pierre and Claude
made together. Pierre Monteux died in Hancock in 1964.
About Claude Monteux
Claude Monteux has established a dual international career as both concert flutist
and conductor. As a flutist, he played under the batons of Toscanini, Walter,
Beecham, Stokowski, Casals, Stravinsky, and his father Pierre Monteux. On the
podium he served as Music Director of the Columbus Symphony 1953-1956 and the
Hudson Valley Philharmonic 1959-1975. Mr. Monteux studied flute with Georges
Laurent, then principal flutist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and conducting
with his father, both privately and at the Monteux School for conductors. He
has appeared in concert and in recording with orchestras throughout the world,
including the London Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony,
the NBC Symphony, the Metropolitan Opera orchestra, and has guest-conducted
orchestras in Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Norway and Holland. He has recorded
extensively on London, Phillips and other labels, including concerti by Mozart
and Bach with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Mr. Monteux has served
on the faculties of the New England Conservatory of Music, the Peabody Conservatory,
Vassar College and Ohio State University. Now affiliated with the SDSU School
of Music and Dance, he spends his summers in Maine, where he is Musical Advisor
of the Pierre Monteux School, coaches chamber ensembles, and works privately
with conductors in their score study. In 1959, Claude Monteux, the son of renowned
conductor, Pierre Monteux, elevated the beginnings of the (Hudson Valley Philharmonic)
orchestra to a fully professional ensemble and renamed it the Hudson Valley
Philharmonic Society, Inc. It became a regional orchestra serving Ulster, Orange,
Rockland, Columbia and Dutchess counties. The Young People's Concerts we offer
today are a direct descendant of the in-school concerts introduced by Maestro
Monteux.
About Kirk Monteux
With his debut album, “Via Lucis”, Kirk Monteux is continuing
the musical tradition of his family and taking the art of modern composition
technique one step further. Kirk Monteux is the great-grandson of Pierre
Monteux, the founder and conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra who
became famous for premiering such major works as Igor Stravinsky's “Le
sacre du printemps”. Born in 1965, Kirk Monteux, who is a classical
guitarist by trade, became acquainted with artists of the “Berlin
School” in
1984 and has been fascinated with the possibilities of electronic music
ever since. In the nineties Kirk Monteux composed and produced music
for computer games in his Frankfurt studio, for the Japanese market
in particular, in addition to theater and film music. Kirk Monteux has
now rediscovered his musical roots and is releasing “Via
Lucis”, his debut album. The work was inspired by the artist and
sculptor, Siegfried Speckhardt. A audio-visual DVD of Speckhardt's
works was already released in 2004. The release
of “Via Lucis“ on
CD now combines new compositions for classical guitar with the atmospheric
soundscapes afforded by modern synthesizers supported by the pianist
Matthias Frey on the grand piano. The orchestral elements and rhythmic
structures of the 12 tracks are an accomplished combination reminiscent
of Vangelis and Andreas Vollenweider. Monteux had a reason for choosing
the title to his album: his debut is the result of his 20-year long journey
towards the light.