The West Virginia University Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Mitchell Arnold, will present its annual Young Artists Concert, Thursday, March 25 at the Creative Arts Center.
The program begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Lyell B. Clay Concert Theatre.
The young artist competition is open to all full-time junior, senior and graduate student music majors, and the winners represent the highest level of student performance at WVU.
The concert features four outstanding student soloists selected after a rigorous and competitive audition process.
Phillip Bracken is pursing a master’s degree in flute performance and theory. He came to WVU after completing a bachelor’s degree in flute performance and composition at Florida Southern College, where he studied with Barbara Jacobson. He is currently studying with Dr. Francesca Arnone.
He will perform “Poem for Flute and Orchestra,” by Charles Tomlinson Griffes.
Griffes never provided a narrative for his “Poem,” yet it is difficult not to associate the flute solo with the mythic Pan, whose flute playing both charmed the gods and was an instrument of seduction. The music initially invokes an image of Arcadian pastoral beauty, while an energetic dance precedes the work’s calm ending.
Melissa Alberque is currently working on her master’s degree in viola performance as a student of Professor Maggie Snyder. She graduated from the University of Alabama with a bachelor’s degree in violin performance and switched from violin to viola when she was awarded a graduate string quartet assistantship at WVU.
Alberque has performed professionally with the Tupelo, Meridian and Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestras. She has also participated in both the Eastern Music Festival and Brevard Music Center Summer Festival, and was appointed to the viola teaching assistant position at the Brevard Music Center during the summer of 2009.
She will perform the finale of William Walton’s “Concerto for Viola and Orchestra.”
This is a landmark work for an instrument historically neglected in concerto literature. Composed in 1929, it has become a major work in the repertoire.
The British composer quite deftly handles the inherent balance issues in pairing this usually somber sounding member of the string family with a large orchestra by featuring the highest register of the solo instrument when needed, and carefully thinning the orchestration when the soloist is given lower tones. Walton’s several orchestral climaxes in the finale are explosive and serve as an effective counterforce to the more thinly scored solo passages.
David Price *is a senior undergraduate violin major in music education and music performance, studying with Dr. Mikylah McTeer.
A native of Martinsburg, W.Va., Price played in four consecutive all-state orchestras during high school and attended several summer music festivals, including Interlochen Arts Camp. While at WVU, he has attended the Round Top Institute and Festival in Texas. Price also plays drum in a jazz combo and guitar in a local rock group.
He will perform the first movement of Sergey Prokofiev’s “Concerto No. 2 for Violin and Orchestra.”
Prokofiev’s concerto opens with a solo violin, starting the work on its lowest string. The violin melody is then passed to ghostly quiet violas and basses. Among the many great moments in the work is the beautiful and soaring violin melody set over gently rustling strings. The movement is replete with march-like passages and a degree of virtuosity that is more subtle than overwhelming.
Sheila Barnhart* is completing a master’s degree in the studio of Dr. Christine Kefferstan. She holds a bachelor of music in piano performance degree from Westminster College, where she studied with Dr. Nancy Zipay-DeSalvo.
Born and raised in western Pennsylvania, Barnhart has participated in numerous ensembles during her time at WVU. She will be performing for the Steinway Society of Western Pennsylvania’s noon hour concert series in May. She will also begin studying for a doctorate at WVU in the fall.
She will perform the first movement of Robert Schumann’s “Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.”
Schumann composed the first movement originally as a complete work, a Fantasia for piano and orchestra, in 1841. The title suggests the movement’s rather quixotic structure, great tempo variation and virtuosic passage work. Schumann then succumbed to four years of deep depression, after which, in a flurry of compositional productivity, he decided to use the piece as the first movement of his only piano concerto.
For tickets and information, contact the College of Creative Arts at 304-293-SHOW.
-WVU-
03/23/10
CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, College of Creative Arts
304-293-4841 ext. 3108, Charlene.Lattea@mail.wvu.edu
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