Taiwanese-American conductor Mei-Ann Chen will make her fourth guest conducting appearance with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra this weekend, leading the orchestra in a Scottish-themed program featuring guest violinist Stefan Jackiw.
We couldn’t reach Maestro Chen last week; she was in Europe conducting Austria’s recreation – Grosses Orchester Graz at Styriarte, an ensemble she has led since being named principal conductor in 2021.
But she did take time to answer a few questions by email about the program she is leading and what she likes about Tucson.
First things first: Chen, the longtime music director of the MacArthur Award-winning Chicago Sinfonietta, made her TSO debut in 2012 and returned twice in the 2016 calendar year — in April 2016 to close out the TSO’s 2015-16 season with Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade” and at the beginning of the 2016-17 season in October to conduct the multimedia concert “The Planets Live” centered around Gustav Holst’s “The Planets.”
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About the guest artist: Jackiw — pronounced Jack-eev — made his TSO debut in 2012, performing Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2. The virtuoso violinist returned three years later in 2015 for a recital with the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music.
Violinist Stefan Jackiw returns to the Tucson Symphony Orchestra 11 years after his TSO debut. We’ve also seen him perform with Arizona Friends of Chamber Music.
Sangwook Lee