CONCERT TO BE HELD IN GENERAL ASSEMBLY HALL IN OBSERVANCE OF UNITED NATIONS DAY

Vienna Symphony To Perform Works by Mozart and Shostakovich

In observance of United Nations Day, a concert of classical music will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday, 24 October 2000, in the General Assembly Hall. The concert, performed by the Vienna Symphony, with Vladimir Fedoseyev conducting, is being presented as a tribute to the Millennium Assembly on the centennial of the Vienna Symphony.

Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, will be present to accept the tribute and deliver his message for United Nations Day. Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Austrian Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Brigitte Ederer, Executive City Counsellor for Finances, Economic Affairs and Public Enterprises of the City of Vienna, will also speak. Harri Holkeri, President of the General Assembly, will attend the concert. Also attending is Nane Annan, wife of the Secretary-General.

The concert programme consists of Symphony No. 41 in C Major, K. 551 ("Jupiter") by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Symphony No. 9 in E-Flat Major, Op. 70 (1945) by Dmitri Shostakovich.

The Vienna Symphony was founded in 1900 by conductor Ferdinand Lowe. Since then, it has been led by such eminent conductors as Wilhelm Furtw�ngler, Richard Strauss, Bruno Walter, Karl B�hm, Otto Klemperer, Herbert von Karajan, Joseph Krips, Claudio Abbado, Lorin Maazel, Christoph von Dohn�nyi, Seiji Ozawa, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Carlo Maria Giulini, Gennady Rozhdestvensky and Georges Pr�tre. Rafael Fr�hbeck de Burgos was Music Director and Chief Conductor from 1991 to 1997, and was succeeded by Vladimir Fedoseyev in 1998. More than 1,000 works -- including Arnold Sch(nberg's Gurrelieder, Maurice Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand and Richard Strauss's Daphne -- have received their world or Vienna premieres with the Vienna Symphony, which has recorded more than 100 albums.

Vladimir Fedoseyev was born in St. Petersburg and educated at the Gnessin Musical Academy and the Moscow Conservatoire. Now in his fourth season with the Vienna Symphony, he is raising the orchestra's profile through touring initiatives and world premieres. He continues in his twenty-sixth season as Principal

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Conductor of the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio. He has been a guest conductor for many leading European orchestras, including those in Hamburg and Stuttgart, Orchestre National de France and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and is the first permanent Guest Conductor of the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. He is a recipient of the Silver Medal of Honour from Austria.

The United Nations Day Concert is the first in the Vienna Symphony's Centennial Tour, which will visit 14 cities in two weeks, with other venues including Carnegie Hall, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Orchestra Hall.

The Vienna Symphony�s concert at the United Nations is organized by the United Nations Department of Public Information and is sponsored by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the City of Vienna, with the special support of the Osterreichische Nationalbank and the Austrian Lotteries. Attendance is by invitation only.

Accredited correspondents who wish to attend the concert should call (212) 963-6934. For further information, please call (212) 963-6923; for media accreditation, (212) 963-6934.

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