Minnesota Orchestra to tour Europe

The Minnesota Orchestra will travel to three major European festivals this summer -- including a return to the BBC Proms, regarded as one of the world's top classical-music events. Following two performances at the Proms, the orchestra will visit the Edinburgh International Festival and then play at the famous Great Hall of Amsterdam's Concertgebouw. The tour, Aug. 24-31, has been entirely underwritten by an anonymous donor.

Thursday's tour announcement continues a string of good news from the orchestra -- following favorable notices for a late-winter concert at Carnegie Hall and the unveiling of a $40 million renovation of Orchestra Hall. In particular, the invitation back to the Proms carries a distinct prestige. Minnesota was there for the first time in 2006 and this time will play Beethoven's Ninth with the BBC Symphony Chorus.

Music director Osmo Vänskä is well known in Scotland, where he was chief conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony in Glasgow from 1996 to 2002. In Amsterdam, the orchestra will play as part of the Robeco Zomerconcerten, an annual festival with more than 100 classical, jazz and world-music performances. The Concertgebouw, which the orchestra also played in 2006, is considered one of the finest acoustic halls in the world.

Violinist Lisa Batiashvili will play violin concertos by Alban Berg and Mozart on the tour. Cellist Alisa Weilerstein will be along for Shostakovich and Elgar concertos. In addition, the program will include Bruckner's Fourth, Beethoven's Seventh and Samuel Barber's "Music for a Scene From Shelley." The Proms concerts Aug. 27-28 will be broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio's classical stations.

Last December, the orchestra launched a six-concert broadcast series on BBC Radio 3. It is the only American orchestra to do so in the current season.

Graydon Royce • 612-673-7299