With Twin Cities Raves, Rilling Booked for Two in NYC

Helmuth Rilling adds Lincoln Center to his 2009 calendar

The star of Helmuth Rilling will continue to shine on the stages of the world's most important concert halls, as the Oregon Bach Festival artistic director has been signed for two New York City engagements in 2009.

In February 2009 Helmuth will conduct the Carnegie Hall Choral Workshop and the Orchestra of St. Luke's in Haydn's Creation. The workshop is open nationwide to choral singers and auditors.

He'll end the year in December 2009 with five performances of Handel's Messiah with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center.

"This is great news for Helmuth and great news too for the Oregon Bach Festival," said John Evans, OBF executive director. "We'll be organizing a pre-Christmas Conductor's Society trip to New York for it, as we will for the Carnegie Hall Creation earlier that year, in February."

The OBF maestro received raves for his mid-May engagement with the Minnesota Orchestra and Minnesota Chorale, teaming with Kathy Saltzman Romey, director of the Chorale and OBF chorus master, for a concert of Brahms choral works.

Rilling produced "shiver-inducing" performances with an "exquisite balance" between the instrumental and choral parts, wrote reviewer David Hawley in the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

"It is doubtful that these works could be performed better anywhere in the world," observed critic William Randall Beard, in the Star Tribune.