NJSO announces Bugs Bunny at the Symphony II
CLASSIC LOONEY TUNES CARTOONS TO SCREEN ABOVE LIVE ORCHESTRAL PERFORMANCE
ADULT TICKETS START AT $20; CHILDREN’S TICKETS ARE HALF PRICE
Sat, Jan 3, at NJPAC in Newark
Sun, Jan 4, at State Theatre in New Brunswick
NEWARK, NJ (September 8, 2014)—The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra presents BUGS BUNNY AT THE SYMPHONY II—a spectacular fusion of classical music and classic animation that celebrates the world’s most famous and beloved cartoons and their equally famous music—on January 3–4, 2015, at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in Newark and State Theatre in New Brunswick. Conducted by Emmy Award winner George Daugherty, and created and produced by Daugherty and Emmy Award-winning producer David Ka Lik Wong, Bugs Bunny at the Symphony II is a celebration of the world’s favorite Warner Bros. Looney Tunes characters on-screen with live full symphony orchestra accompaniment. These NJSO concerts are the first performances of the production’s landmark 25th-anniversary season.
These milestone performances take place on Saturday, January 3, at 3 pm at NJPAC and Sunday, January 4, at 3 pm at the State Theatre. Adult tickets start at $20; tickets for children age 15 and younger are half price. Full concert information is available at www.njsymphony.org/events/detail/warner-bros-presents-bugs-bunny-at-the-symphony-2. Tickets are available for purchase online or by phone at 1.800.ALLEGRO (255.3476). The January 4 performance is presented in collaboration with the State Theatre.
This production is the second critically acclaimed sequel to Bugs Bunny on Broadway, the record-setting orchestra-and-film concert that pioneered a new genre of orchestral entertainment when it debuted on Broadway in 1990. In 2010, this concert franchise—which has played to more than 2.5 million people worldwide—received standing ovations and rave reviews when a new version—Bugs Bunny at the Symphony—received its double world premiere at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony.
This latest incantation celebrates this show’s 25-year legacy of pairing Looney Tunes and orchestral music together in concert. Retaining the most indelible moments from the original production, Bugs Bunny at the Symphony II includes Chuck Jones’ inspired What’s Opera, Doc? and The Rabbit of Seville, while adding in other Warner Bros. classics like Friz Freleng’s Rhapsody Rabbit and the virtuoso orchestral rollercoaster ride of the Road Runner epic, Zoom and Bored. Bugs Bunny is joined on-screen by his immensely popular cohorts, including Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, Tweety, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner and many others. New to the concert are Tom and Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl, three of the funniest Daffy Duck epics ever made—Show Biz Bugs, Duck Amuck and Robin Hood Daffy—and a trio of love songs by the world’s most scent-challenged crooner, Pepe Le Pew. Two spectacular new 3D-CGI Looney Tunes—I Tawt I Taw A Puddy Tat and Coyote Falls—round out the program.
This concert has one of the widest demographics of any film-and-orchestra presentation in the marketplace, as it continues to attract audiences of all ages into the classical music world’s most iconic concert halls with the world’s leading orchestras. In almost a quarter century, the Bugs Bunny concert franchise has appeared in repeat engagements with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, National and San Francisco symphonies and the orchestras of Cleveland, Philadelphia, Houston, Dallas, St. Louis, Minnesota, Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Sydney, Copenhagen, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Seattle, Calgary, Vancouver, Ottawa and many others.
LOONEY TUNES and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
TOM AND JERRY and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © Turner Entertainment Co.
(s14)
GEORGE DAUGHERTY
Conductor George Daugherty is one of the classical music world’s most diverse artists. In addition to his 35-year conducting career which has included appearances with the world’s leading orchestras, ballet companies, opera houses and concert artists, Daugherty is also an Emmy Award-winning, five-time Emmy nominated creator whose professional profile includes major credits as a director, writer and producer for television, film, theater and innovative and unique concerts.
In 1990, Daugherty created, directed and conducted the hit Broadway musical Bugs Bunny on Broadway, a live-orchestra-and-film stage production that sold out its extended run at New York’s Gershwin Theatre and has since played to critical acclaim and sold-out houses worldwide. The Bugs Bunny symphonic concert tradition continued when Daugherty and producing partner David Ka Lik Wong launched a new version, Bugs Bunny at the Symphony in 2010 and Bugs Bunny at the Symphony II in 2013. Daugherty is also the executive producer, conductor and creator of the touring concert Rodgers & Hammerstein on Stage and Screen.
Daugherty has conducted more than 20 performances at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and an equal number with the National Symphony Orchestra at Wolf Trap. Recent conducting engagements include multiple performances with the St. Louis, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Baltimore, Dallas, Omaha and Kitchener-Waterloo symphonies; Cleveland, Philadelphia and West Australia orchestras; Calgary and Malaysian philharmonics; Russian National Orchestra; Danish National Symphony Orchestra; American Ballet Theatre and Munich State Opera and Ballet, among others worldwide. He has been a frequent guest conductor at the Sydney Opera House and recorded an album with the Sydney Symphony.
He is a frequent guest conductor of ballet and opera productions at de Bellas Artes Opera House in Mexico City. In 2012–13, he served as music director of Ballet San Jose. He conducted a 15-city U.S. and Canadian concert tour with London’s Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra and guest artists Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Charlotte Church, dancers of the Royal Ballet and the Westminster Choir and Bell Ringers.
As a director, writer and producer of music-based television programs, Daugherty has created, conducted and directed major productions for ABC, including a primetime animation-and-live-action production of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, for which he won major awards including a daytime Emmy Award. He collaborated with author Amy Tan on a television series adaptation of her celebrated children’s book Sagwa, The Chinese Siamese Cat; the Emmy Award-winning series debuted on PBS in the fall of 2001 as a daily-animated children’s television series. Daugherty also received an Emmy nomination for Rhythm & Jam, his ABC television network specials that taught the basics of music to a teenage audience.
DAVID KA LIK WONG
Bugs Bunny at the Symphony II Executive Producer David Ka Lik Wong garnered an Emmy Award for his work as producer on Peter and the Wolf in 1996; he received an Emmy nomination in 1994 for his work as producer of Rhythm & Jam, ABC’s Saturday-morning music-education specials.
He teamed with George Daugherty as principal producer for the Peter and the Wolf project, the animation and live-action production starring Kirstie Alley, Lloyd Bridges, Sleepless in Seattle’s Ross Malinger and animated characters of legendary animation director Chuck Jones. He produced the production’s interactive CD-ROM for Time Warner Interactive.
Wong was the senior producer for the Warner Bros. documentary film The Magical World of Chuck Jones, directed by George Daugherty and featuring Steven Spielberg, Whoopi Goldberg, George Lucas, and Ron Howard.
He has been the producer of Bugs Bunny on Broadway since 1991 as it has toured worldwide; he co-produced the program’s album for Warner Bros. Records. He has produced innovative symphony orchestra concerts for some of the world’s leading orchestras, including the National and San Francisco symphonies, Philadelphia Orchestra, Royal and Los Angeles philharmonics, Sydney Opera House, Wales Millennium Centre, Sinfonia Britannia and many others. He recently produced critically acclaimed Christmas concerts for Canada’s National Arts Centre and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. He is also executive producer and co-creator of the touring concert Rodgers & Hammerstein on Stage and Screen.
Wong teamed with Daugherty, Amy Tan and the Sesame Workshop to produce and create the Emmy Award-winning television series Sagwa, The Chinese Siamese Cat. He wrote a number of episodes for the series and story-edited all 80 segments.
Wong is the producer of the WaterTower Music CD release of Bugs Bunny at the Symphony. In addition to his Emmy Awards and nominations, he has won numerous awards including the Grand Award of both the Houston and Chicago International Film Festivals, a Silver Award of the Chicago Film Festival, two Parents’ Choice Awards and the Kids First Award.
WARNER BROS. CONSUMER PRODUCTS
Warner Bros. Consumer Products, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, is one of the leading licensing and retail merchandising organizations in the world.
THE NEW JERSEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Named “a vital, artistically significant musical organization” by The Wall Street Journal, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra embodies that vitality through its statewide presence and critically acclaimed performances, education partnerships and unparalleled access to music and the Orchestra’s superb musicians.
Under the bold leadership of Music Director Jacques Lacombe, the NJSO presents classical, pops and family programs, as well as outdoor summer concerts and special events. Embracing its legacy as a statewide orchestra, the NJSO is the resident orchestra of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark and regularly performs at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, Richardson Auditorium in Princeton, Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown and bergenPAC in Englewood. Partnerships with New Jersey arts organizations, universities and civic organizations remain a key element of the Orchestra’s statewide identity.
In addition to its lauded artistic programming, the NJSO presents a suite of education and community engagement programs that promote meaningful, lifelong engagement with live music. Programs include the three-ensemble NJSO Youth Orchestras, school-time Concerts for Young People performances and multiple initiatives that provide and promote in-school instrumental instruction as part of the NJSO Academy. The NJSO’s REACH (Resources for Education and Community Harmony) chamber music program annually brings original programs—designed and performed by NJSO musicians—to a variety of settings, reaching as many as 17,000 people in nearly all of New Jersey’s 21 counties.
For more information about the NJSO, visit www.njsymphony.org or email information@njsymphony.org. Tickets are available for purchase by phone 1.800.ALLEGRO (255.3476) or on the Orchestra’s website.
The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra’s programs are made possible in part by The New Jersey State Council on the Arts, along with many other foundations, corporations and individual donors. United is the official airline of the NJSO.
PRESS CONTACT
National & NYC Press Representative:
Dan Dutcher, Dan Dutcher Public Relations | 917.566.8413 | dan@dandutcherpr.com
Regional Press Representative:
Victoria McCabe, NJSO Communications and External Affairs | 973.735.1715 | vmccabe@njsymphony.org
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