Portland Symphony Orchestra, Ina Zdorovetchi & Eckart Preu
Biographie Portland Symphony Orchestra, Ina Zdorovetchi & Eckart Preu
Ina Zdorovetchi
is an American harpist of Eastern European descent. Over the past 25 years she has given hundreds of concerto performances, including many world/continental premieres. She has appeared with numerous orchestras around the world including The Boston Pops, Westdeutscher Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Köln, Jerusalem Symphony, Haifa Symphony, Portland Symphony Orchestra, Long Beach Symphony, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, Seattle Chamber Orchestra, Brevard Music Center Orchestra, and many others. Highlights include giving the European Premiere of John Williams’ On Willows and Birches harp concerto, world premiere of Thomas Oboe Lee’s …bisbigliando… harp concerto (dedicated to her), and being featured as one of five soloists in the American Harp Society National Conference Gala Concert alongside some of the world’s most celebrated harpists.
As a recitalist and chamber musician she has been presented by Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, World Harp Congress, Celebrity Series of Boston, Savannah Music Festival, Rockport Chamber Music, and she was honored to give a solo recital at the residence of John Kerry, 68th Secretary of State of the United States, in front of a crowd of the world’s preeminent leaders. Her performances have been broadcast live on WDR Köln (Germany), Israel Broadcasting Authority, National Public Radio (USA), WGBH Radio Boston, Moldova National TV & Radio, and recorded for Sony, Naxos, Albany Records, BMOP/Sound and Portland Symphony TV, among others.
Over the years, she has received numerous awards and honors for her work, including the Alien with Extraordinary Abilities in the Arts title from the United States government, Outstanding Music Faculty of the Year from Boston Conservatory, Henry Cabot Award for Special Commitment of Talent from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, top prize and multiple special awards at the 17th International Harp Contest in Israel, and second prize at Cite des Arts Competition in Paris, France.
Currently, she maintains a busy schedule performing as a guest with various organizations across the United States and serves as the principal harpist of the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, Portland Symphony Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and Boston Lyric Opera. As a former faculty member at Boston Conservatory at Berklee (Department Chair and Associate Professor), Brevard Music Center (Department Director), Wellesley College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and New England Conservatory Preparatory Division, she takes pride in an extensive teaching output, She has worked with students from across the globe who went on to be accepted to nearly all of the country’s most selective college harp programs (Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, Yale University, University of Southern California, Rice University, etc.), perform as soloists with various orchestras in the United States and Europe, be featured at the World Harp Congress, and win prestigious competition prizes.
Educated in the United States, Romania, and her native Moldova, she holds degrees from New England Conservatory, Boston University, Boston Conservatory, Bucharest University of Music, and “Ciprian Porumbescu” Lyceum of Music (double-majoring in harp and piano). When not practicing or performing, Zdorovetchi enjoys spending her free time on a quiet Florida beach, voraciously reading about her favorite subjects: psychology, financial markets, and kinesics.
Portland Symphony Orchestra
Founded in 1924 in Portland ME, the Portland Symphony Orchestra (PSO) has a long and illustrious history of bringing fine orchestral music to Maine and northern New England. It is an ongoing source of civic pride and artistic leadership, the largest performing arts organization in this city of 70,000 people. All volunteer at its start, the PSO now employs 83 professional musicians drawn from all six New England states. It performs nearly 40 concerts each season at Merrill Auditorium in Portland and at Seaside Pavilion in Old Orchard Beach. The PSO’s education and lifelong learning programs reach thousands of people across Maine every year, both in person and virtually.
Led since 2019 by Music Director Eckart Preu, the orchestra proudly lists Richard Burgin, Arthur Bennett Lipkin, Paul Vermel, Bruce Hangen, Toshi Shimada, and Robert Moody among Preu’s predecessors. Its more than 75 world and United States premieres includes works by Alan Hovhaness, Walter Piston, Daniel Pinkham, Elliot Schwartz, Morton Gould, and Daniel Sonenberg. Maestro Preu’s broad musical enthusiasm fits well with the Portland audience’s musical curiosity; each season includes unfamiliar music from the past and a wide sampling of new works.
The Portland Symphony Orchestra serves the greater Portland community by enriching lives through music. Beginning in 2020, it embarked on the serious work of transforming every aspect of its operation to reflect strongly held principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion. This recording, Máscaras: Music from Mexico, is an early result of the orchestra’s efforts to broaden its own horizons as well as the standard orchestral canon. With stunning works by three living Mexican composers—each highlighting the diversity of Mexico’s incredibly rich musical tradition—this recording was made during two live concerts in April 2023 at Merrill Auditorium in Portland. It captures the excitement of these concerts; we hope it will encourage other orchestras to program these works and further explore the music of these composers.
Eckart Preu
is the Music Director of the Portland Symphony Orchestra, the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra (CA), and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra (OH).
Previously, he was the Music Director of the Spokane Symphony (WA) and the Stamford Symphony (CT), Associate Conductor of the Richmond Symphony (VA), and Resident Conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra and the American Russian Young Artists Orchestra. Also, Preu served as Music Director of the Orchestre International de Paris.
His career highlights include performances at Carnegie Hall, the Sorbonne in Paris, a live broadcast with the Jerusalem Symphony, and the world premiere of Letters from Lincoln as his first commercial recording – a work commissioned by the Spokane Symphony from Michael Daugherty, featuring baritone soloist Thomas Hampson. He has collaborated with internationally-renowned soloists including Sarah Chang, Anne Akiko Meyers, Jean-Phillipe Collard, Vladimir Feltsman, Horacio Gutiérrez, Leila Josefowicz, Louis Lortie, and Richard Stoltzman.
In addition, Preu has conducted the Jerusalem Symphony (Israel), Symphony Orchestra of Chile, Philharmonic Orchestra of Bogota (Columbia), Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco (Mexico), Auckland Philharmonia (New Zealand), and the Symphony Orchestra of Tenerife in Spain.
Preu was a Portland Symphony Orchestra guest conductor in the 2010-11 season.
A native of Germany, Preu came to the United States as the winner of the National Conducting Competition of the German Academic Exchange Service (1996) to study with Harold Farberman at the Hartt School of Music, where he also received the Karl Boehm Scholarship. In Germany, he earned a master’s degree in conducting from the Hochschule für Musik in Weimar studying under Gunter Kahlert and Nicolás Pasquet. He also studied under Jean-Sébastien Béreau at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris in France. Preu’s education was made possible by scholarships from the Herbert von Karajan Foundation, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, and the French Ministry of Culture. Preu’s early musical training was in piano and voice. At age 10 he became a member of the boys’ choir Dresdner Kreuzchor and went on to work with them as soloist and assistant conductor. Preu currently resides in New York.
