VALENTINES DAY PROGRAM MAKES MONTEREY SYMPHONY CONCERT A REAL JEWEL, FEBRUARY 16, 17, AND 18, 2008.

January 29, 2008, Carmel, California: Acclaimed coloratura soprano Tracy Dahl makes her debut with the Monterey Symphony performing arias by Bellini, Puccini, and Verdi. Guest conductor Marko Letonja returns to the podium to lead the orchestra. His whose performance of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet Suite with the orchestra in February 2005 ranks among members of the orchestra and audience as one of the high points in our performance history. On the program, Mr. Letonja will conduct Polish composer Andrej Panufnik's celebrated Sinfonia sacra, one of the greatest works produced in the second half of the 20^th century.

Single tickets for the Saturday, February 16, 8:00 p.m. performance at Salinas' Sherwood Hall are $38, $28, $18 and $16 students. For the Stage Door Performance at 3:00 p.m. (final rehearsal) tickets are $12 in advance, $15 at the door. Single tickets for the Sunday, February 17, 3:00 p.m. and Monday, February 18, 8:00 p.m. concerts at Carmel's Sunset Theater are $60, $55, $50, $45, and $35 -- not including Sunset Center's Facility Use Fee. Visa and MasterCard are accepted. Ticket buyers are urged to call immediately for tickets as the likelihood of sold-out performances is great. Call 831-624-8511 extension "0," for exact seat locations.

With her 2006 debut at La Scala as Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, Canada's premier coloratura soprano Tracy Dahl has taken another milestone in a career that has brought her together with such opera houses as the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Canadian Opera Company, and the Chatelet in Paris, to name a few. Her "superlative coloratura" (Globe and Mail), "deliciously accurate, stratospheric" (Opera), is regularly singled out by critics. "Her extreme high notes, and she threw in a lot of them, are easy and spectacular." (Boston Globe). She has "a voice filled with sunshine, rainbows and laser light" according to Opera Magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle finds her "bright, sparkling, and bouncing, accurate and winning." "Where pure, well-tuned, characterful, and seemingly easy acrobatics through two and a half octaves are required, Dahl is among a relative few who can do it all superlatively well," comments the Calgary Herald.

This season starts off with Carmina Burana at the International Cesky Crumlov Festival with the Prague Radio Symphony, followed by a re-invitation to Houston Grand Opera, this time as Mme Mao in John Adams' Nixon in China, a role she later repeats with Colorado Opera. Other commitments bring her to Calgary Opera as Gilda in Rigoletto and Arizona Opera in Lucia di Lammermoor in the title role.

Tracy Dahl has performed with every major Canadian orchestra, including the Toronto Symphony under Andrew Davis in Mahler's Symphony No. 8 and Strauss' Daphne in solo concert appearances and numerous American orchestras including those in Atlanta, Saint Louis and Philadelphia. This is her first appearance with the Monterey Symphony.

Marko Letonja, former music director of the Basel Symphony Orchestra, is in great demand by European orchestras and opera houses. Mr. Letonja gained wide recognition through a highly publicized and critically acclaimed tour of England and other European nations with the Slovenian Philharmonic which he led as music director and chief conductor for several seasons. He has conducted opera at Milan's Teatro alla Scala, Naples' Teatro San Carlo, Lisbon's Teatro Nacional de Sao Carlos, Teatro Belles Artes in Mexico City, Geneva Opera, and the Basel Theater. He has led the symphony orchestras of Vienna, Graz, Mainz, Zagreb, Milan, and all the orchestras in his native Slovenia. He has worked with such distinguished artists as Mstislav Rostropovich, Heinrich Schiff, Alicia de Larrocha, Vadim Repin, Lazar Berman, and Sarah Chang.

Mr. Letonja studied at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, first piano, and then conducting under Professor Anton Nanut. Simultaneously, he studied conducting under Professor Otmar Suitner at the Vienna Academy of Music and Theatrical Arts, from which he graduated in 1989. He is considered one of the leading conductors of his generation. This is his conducting debut in California. These concert herald his conducting debut in California.

The Monterey Symphony, under the artistic leadership of Max Bragado, is the only fully-professional orchestra serving the communities of the Monterey Bay, Salinas, Salinas Valley, Big Sur, and San Benito County. It provides triple performances of a seven-concert subscription series at Carmel's Sunset Theater and Salinas' Sherwood Hall, annual holiday concerts, and an extensive youth activities program, including more than 200 visits to classrooms by musicians, which culminates in concerts by the full orchestra for school children.

The Monterey Symphony is a nonprofit, public benefit corporation, supported, in part, through the fundraising efforts of the Friends of the Monterey Symphony; and grants from The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, The Harden Foundation, The Robert and Virginia Stanton Fund at the Community Foundation for Monterey County, The William and Flora Hewlitt Foundation, The Monterey Peninsula Foundation, The General Endowment Fund of the Community Foundation for Monterey County, The Chapman Foundation, The Communities Advancing the Arts Initiative of the Community Foundation of Monterey County, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Graniterock Company, The Nunes Company, Upjohn California Fund, and many other generous foundations and individual donors.

The next performances by the Monterey Symphony will take place on March 15, 16, and 17, 2008 and feature music director Max Bragado-Darman conducting guitarist Angel Romero in Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, Copland's Appalachian Spring, and Poulenc's Sinfonietta. For additional information, please call 831-624-8511 extension 0 or visit our web site:

www.montereysymphony.org.

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MONTEREY SYMPHONY 62^nd SUBSCRIPTION SEASON 2007-2008

Marko Letonja, conductor

Tracy Dahl, coloratura soprano

Saturday, February 16, 2008, 8:00 p.m. Sherwood Hall, Salinas

Sunday, February 17, 2008, 3:00 p.m. Sunset Theater, Carmel

Monday, February 18, 2008, 8:00 p.m. Sunset Theater, Carmel

PROGRAM

ANDRZEJ PANUFNIK                  Symphony No.3, Sinfonia sacra
(1914-1991)                                             I. Three Visions
                                                             II. Hymn


Intermission


VINCENZO BELLINI                     Sinfonia from I Capuleti e i Montecchi
(1801-1935)
                                                  Oh, Quante volte from I Capuleti e i Montecchi
                                                               Tracy Dahl, soprano


GIACOMO PUCCINI                     Intermezzo from Manon Lescaut
(1858 - 1924)
                                                  Quando me'n vo from La boheme
                                                               Tracy Dahl, soprano


GIUSEPPE VERDI                      Prelude to Act I from La traviata
(1811-1901)
                                                  Ah fors'e lui . . . sempre libre from La traviata
                                                               Tracy Dahl, soprano

This program will be broadcast on KUSP 88.9 FM on Sunday, March 9, 2008, 11:00 a.m.