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The recording features two works: Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F minor and Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, both recorded live in Meymandi Concert Hall during the Symphony’s 2002-03 season. Of the Strauss performance, reviewer Roy Dicks said in the Raleigh News & Observer: “A searing Zarathustra. Zimmermann proved a master architect. This was an inspired, deeply satisfying performance.” Of the Tchaikovsky performance, Dicks said, “[Conducting] without a score, Zimmermann’s beaming expressions and focused energy revealed a joyous commitment to the piece.”

Maestro Zimmermann’s 21-year tenure with the North Carolina Symphony is one of the longest of American music directors. During his years with the orchestra, the North Carolina Symphony grew and prospered, expanding the performance season and opening two new concert venues in the same year: Meymandi Concert Hall in February 2001 and the Amphitheatre at Regency Park in Cary later that spring. After Zimmermann’s final concerts as Music Director and Conductor on May 2 & 3 this year, he becomes the Symphony’s first Conductor Laureate and will return for engagements with the orchestra through 2008.

Other recordings of the North Carolina Symphony include The Music of Robert Ward (1987), Holiday Favorites (1988) and Americana (1996). The cost of In Celebration is $15, including tax. The CD will be available in the Symphony offices in the lower level of the BTI Center, at Symphony concerts in Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, and online at the Symphony website: www.ncsymphony.org.

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