Sun December 31 | 8:30 PM

New Year's Eve

Celebration

Raise a toast to 2024 at our second-annual New Year’s Eve Celebration, including the 100th birthday celebration of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

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December 31, 2023 8:30 PM

New Year's Eve

Celebration

Francesco Lecce-Chong, conductor
Alexandre Dossin, piano
Halie Loren, vocalist

We had such a blast at our first-ever New Year’s Eve Celebration in 2022, so we want to keep the party going by ringing in 2024 with class and style. The festivities begin with a concert featuring Strauss waltzes, favorites from the Great American Songbook with Eugene’s own Halie Loren, and pianist Alexandre Dossin playing George Gershwin’s timeless Rhapsody in Blue as it marks the 100th anniversary of its 1924 premiere. Afterward, commemorate the end of the old year and the beginning of the new one with dancing, drinks, and more in the lobby!

LEARN MORE

  • Listen to the below Spotify playlist, curated by Music Director & Conductor Francesco Lecce-Chong, for previews of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, as well as other pieces performed by our guest artists Halie Loren and Alexandre Dossin.
  • Read our First-Timers Guide to brush up on orchestra vocabulary and find out what to expect from a concert at the Hult Center


About Halie Loren

Halie Loren

Halie Loren is an international, award-winning jazz singer/songwriter. Raised in Alaska, this Oregon-based artist brings a fresh and original perspective to time-honored musical paths, channeling her innate understanding of connectedness across musical boundaries to forge bonds with diverse audiences in North America, Asia, and Europe. A lover of global cultures and music, her repertoire is a multi-lingual one, including songs in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese and Korean as well as her native English. She’s released eight albums to-date, garnering several national and international awards as well as significant critical and chart success along the way, with her albums consistently charting at #1 in Billboard/Japan Jazz Charts, iTunes (Canada and Japan) and Amazon Music

Her debut jazz CD, 2008’s “They Oughta Write a Song,” won Best Vocal Jazz Album of the year in the JPF awards (then the world’s largest independent music awards). She was signed in 2010 by JVC/Kenwood Entertainment (Japan/Asia) and in 2011 by Justin Time Records. Halie has since released nine additional albums including two Japan-only releases, and gone on to win many awards as both a singer and a songwriter. Loren’s original song “Thirsty” won the Independent Music Awards’ best jazz song of the year in 2011. Her 2012 release, “Heart First,” was honored by Japan’s Jazz Critique Magazine as the best vocal jazz album of year, and reached No. 1 on the iTunes Canada jazz albums chart. In 2013, “Simply Love” debuted at No. 1 on Billboard Jazz / Japan and entered iTunes Canada as #1 jazz album. Her 2014 best-of compilation release “The Best Collection”, 2015’s “Butterfly Blue”, and 2016’s “Live at Cotton Club” also hit #1 on Billboard Japan’s jazz chart.

Along with recording success, Loren’s live performances have expanded to include performances with the Jazz Orchestra of Sicily, the Corvallis-OSU Symphony Orchestra in Oregon, the Monroe Symphony in Louisiana and the prestigious International Britt Fest Orchestra. For the past seven years she has traveled east to west in the U.S. and other parts of the world, including Canada, Japan, Italy, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Haiti, and Egypt. The last few months of her tours have included sold-out tour dates in Japan, Korea (including a Korean festival performance with an audience of over 25,000), Quebec, Florida, and Georgia. Last year found her in London and New York working on a new album of her original material “From the Wild Sky” with UK producer Troy Miller, a project for which she raised over $68,000 of funding from her worldwide fans via crowdsourcing site Kickstarter. “From the Wild Sky” was released worldwide in April 2018, and since then, Loren has been touring in support of it with tour dates across North America, Asia, and Europe, with more on the horizon.

About Alexandre Dossin

Alexandre Dossin

Considered by Martha Argerich an “extraordinary musician” and by the international critic a “phenomenon” and “a master of contrasts,” Steinway Artist Alexandre Dossin keeps an active performing, recording and teaching careers. He is Professor of Piano and Chair of the piano department at the University of Oregon School of Music and Dance.

Born in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where he lived until he was 19, Alexandre spent nine years studying in Moscow, Russia, before establishing residency in the United States.Currently a tenured professor at the University of Oregon School of Music, Alexandre Dossin is a graduate from the University of Texas-Austin and the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Russia. He studied with Hubertus Hofmann and Dirce Knijnik at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, with Boris Romanov (Merzliakovsky Pre-Conservatory School in Moscow) and was assistant of Sergei Dorensky at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory (Moscow, Russia) and Willliam Race and Gregory Allen at University of Texas at Austin (USA).

A prizewinner in several international piano competitions, Dossin received the First Prize and the Special Prize at the 2003 Martha Argerich International Piano Competition in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Other international awards include the Silver Medal and second Honorable Mention in the Maria Callas Grand Prix, and Third Prize and Special Prize in the Mozart International Piano Competition, in addition to several prizes in Brazil.

He performed numerous live recitals for public radio in Texas, Wisconsin, Washington and Illinois, including returning engagements at the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series. Dossin has performed in over twenty countries, including international festivals in Japan, Canada, United States, Brazil and Argentina, in some occasions sharing the stage with Martha Argerich

He has CDs released by Musicians Showcase Recording (Alexandre Dossin, 2002), Blue Griffin (A Touch of Brazil, 2005), and Naxos (Verdi-Liszt Paraphrases, 2007, Kabalevsky Complete Sonatas, 2009, Kabalevsky Complete Preludes, 2009, Russian Transcriptions, 2012, Piano Music of Leonard Bernstein, 2015) praised in reviews by Diapason, The Financial Times, Fanfare Magazine, American Record Guide, Clavier and other international publications. Conductors with whom he has performed include Charles Dutoit, Isaac Karabtchevsky, Keith Clark and Michael Gielen, with orchestras including the Porto Alegre Symphony Orchestra, Buenos Aires Philharmonic, Brazilian National Symphony, Mozarteum University Symphony, Petrobrás Symphony and Tchaikovsky Conservatory Symphony Orchestras. Alexandre Dossin was featured in the main interview and on the cover of Clavier magazine (May, 2008) and is an editor and recording artist for Schirmer Performance Editions series (Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons in 2009, Tchaikovsky’s Album for the Young and Prokofiev’s Visions Fugitives in 2010, Liszt Consolations and Liebesträume, 2011, Rachmaninoff Preludes op. 3/2 and op. 23, 2012, Preludes op. 32, 2013).

Enter the Eugene Symphony Lottery

Are you feeling lucky? Enter the Eugene Symphony lottery for the chance to win two tickets to an upcoming concert! Fill out this form, including contact information and choose from a variety of our symphonic concerts that you would like to attend. If you are a winner, you will be contacted one week before the concert to collect your winnings.


COVID-19 PROTOCOLS

The health and safety of Eugene Symphony audience members, musicians, and staff members has been and will always be our top priority. We strongly welcome and encourage patrons who wish to continue wearing masks while attending performances to do so. We want all of our attendees to feel comfortable and accepted in your choice. You take care of you, we'll take care of the music and ensuring that your experience attending a Eugene Symphony concert remains exceptional.

For the most up to date health and safety protocols for our concerts, visit our Eugene Symphony Safety page.


LOCATION: Hult Center for the Performing Arts


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