According to the Hollywood Bowl: “Nearly 75 years ago, Walt Disney used the skill of his world-class animators to visualize the world of classical music. The result: Walt Disney’s Fantasia. In celebration of the 20th anniversary of our very own Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, John Mauceri returns to the Bowl to recreate this magic – an evening of selections from the classic film with clips on the Bowl’s big screen. You’ll see your favorites, plus a glimpse into the brilliant artwork and unfinished segments of this Disney masterpiece. The evening ends with fireworks that complement the spectacular beauty of this cinematic triumph.” For more information, visit the Bowl’s website at: http://www.hollywoodbowl.com/tickets/performance-detail.cfm?id=4567

For more on the Bowl’s season from the LA Times, see: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-hollywood-bowl-20110126,0,187538.story

Mauceri was recently the topic of conversation on Turner Classic Movies. About 10 p.m. on Jan. 22, prior to the next movie presentation, host Robert Osborne and guest Alec Baldwin were discussing the Jewish musicians who fled Germany during World War II, and how they created such wonderful movie music. Baldwin recounted how much he enjoyed hearing John Mauceri conducting concerts of film music (Korngold in particular) at the Hollywood Bowl.

This is Chancellor Mauceri’s first return to the Bowl since 2007, when he was inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame, along with legendary tenor Plácido Domingo. In that appearance, Mauceri also conducted the Bowl Orchestra as School of the Arts dance students performed.

Mauceri was reunited with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in 2008, when he conducted as the surprise opening for The Walt Disney Co.’s showcase of its upcoming film projects (known as “the rollout”) at the Kodak Theatre (home of the Oscars) in Los Angeles.

The Bowl concerts in the summer will coincide with the commencement of Mauceri’s sixth year as chancellor. As UNCSA chancellor, he has guided the school through some of the most challenging economic times while continuing to build upon the institution's past success. A few accomplishments of note in Mauceri’s first five years are: helping the school secure $45 million in capital funds for four new buildings; his appointment of art school deans who are stars in their art form; having “University" added to the school's name; five new $1 million endowed professorships; and significantly increasing private donations. In addition, Chancellor Mauceri has continued to work with the greatest artistic institutions in the world, creating opportunities for students to collaborate with performers and creators in the forefront of their fields.

JOHN MAUCERI

John Mauceri is the chancellor of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) and the founding director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. His distinguished and extraordinary career has taken him not only to the world’s greatest opera companies and symphony orchestras, but also the musical stages of Broadway and Hollywood, as well as the most prestigious halls of academia.
 
Mauceri has served as music director of four opera companies: Washington (National), Scottish (Glasgow), the Teatro Regio (Turin, Italy), and Pittsburgh. He is the first American to have held the post of music director of an opera house in either Great Britain or Italy. He was the first music director of the American Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall after its founding director, Leopold Stokowski, with whom he studied. He was Consultant for Music Theater at Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for more than a decade, and, for 15 years, he served on the faculty of Yale University. For 18 years, Mauceri worked closely with Leonard Bernstein and conducted many of the composer’s premieres at Bernstein’s request.
 
On Broadway, he was co-producer of On Your Toes, and served as musical supervisor for Hal Prince’s production of Candide as well as Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Song and Dance. He also conducted the orchestra for the film version of Evita. Among his many awards and honors are a Tony, Grammy, Billboard, Olivier, and two Emmys.
 
Mauceri holds the lifetime title of Founding Director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, which was created for him in 1991 by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and with whom he led more than 300 concerts to a total audience of more than 4 million people. He has written for and appeared on radio and television and has delivered keynote speeches and papers for major artistic and educational institutions such as Harvard University, the American Academy in Berlin, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the American Musicological Society, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
 
Mauceri has taken the lead in the preservation and performance of many genres of music and has supervised/conducted important premieres by composers as diverse as Debussy, Stockhausen, Korngold, Hindemith, Bernstein, Ives, Elfman, and Shore. He is a leading performer of music banned by the Third Reich and especially music of Hollywood’s émigré composers, and can be seen and heard on many recent DVD releases of classic films.

The University of North Carolina School of the Arts is the first state-supported, residential school of its kind in the nation. Established as the North Carolina School of the Arts by the N.C. General Assembly in 1963, UNCSA opened in Winston-Salem (“The City of Arts and Innovation”) in 1965 and became part of the University of North Carolina system in 1972. More than 1,100 students from high school through graduate school train for careers in the arts in five professional schools: Dance, Design and Production (including a Visual Arts Program), Drama, Filmmaking, and Music. UNCSA is the state’s only public arts conservatory, dedicated entirely to the professional training of talented students in the performing, visual and moving image arts. UNCSA is located at 1533 S. Main St., Winston-Salem. For more information, visit www.uncsa.edu.

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