Two outstanding violin students from the West Virginia University School of Music have been selected to perform for Rachel Barton Pine, one of the great international violin superstars, during a master class sponsored by the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra on Sept. 20 in Charleston, West Virginia.

Taylor Giorgio, a native of Charleston, and Judith Meyers, of Pittsburgh, will take part in the master class on the afternoon of Sept. 20, before Barton Pine performs with the West Virginia Symphony at a concert that evening.

“I am pleased that our growing relationship with the West Virginia Symphony has begun to positively impact students,” said College of Creative Arts Dean Paul Kreider. “In addition to faculty collaborations and children’s concerts in the CAC, we have had two years of WVU students appearing in master classes in Charleston. We are grateful for this relationship and we will work to expand it for the benefit of our students.”

Giorgio will perform the first movement of Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 and Meyers will perform Ernest Bloch’s “Nigun” from his Baal Shem Suite.

The master class will be held at 1 p.m. at the Kanawha Presbyterian Church in downtown Charleston and is free and open to the public.

“Both Taylor and Judith epitomize the well-rounded violinist that will find much success in the modern musical world,” said their violin professor, Mikylah McTeer. “Taylor is a double degree student in both violin performance and music education, and Judith finished an undergraduate degree in performance and is now pursuing a master’s degree in music education.

“They are both going to be stellar teachers, while bringing top-rate performance skills to the stage. And they both happen to be very smart, kind and upbeat! I know they will gain so much from working with Rachel Barton Pine, who is an incredible violinist and an amazing role model. I’m so thrilled that they will get to work with her.”

Giorgio is in her last semester as a music education and violin performance double major at WVU, which she has attended on full scholarship. She is a member of the WVU Symphony Orchestra and also a private violin instructor through WVU’s Community Music Program and the conductor of the Morgantown Community Orchestra. She is the president of the American String Teachers Association WVU student chapter at WVU. In February 2013, Giorgio won the WVU Young Artist Concerto Competition and performed as a soloist with the WVU Symphony Orchestra, and in April 2014, she performed a solo concerto written by a WVU student composer with the WVU Symphony.

She has performed at prestigious music festivals including Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine, Brevard Music Festival in North Carolina, and Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival in Vermont. In 2009, as a student at Capitol High School, she won the Andrew and Amy Vaughn Student Fellowship with the West Virginia Symphony, and performed as a soloist with the symphony in Charleston.

Meyers, a native of Pittsburgh, is a graduate of Duquesne University, where she completed her bachelor’s degree in violin performance last May. Last year, Meyers was a winner of Duquesne’s Concerto Competition and was featured as a soloist with the Duquesne Symphony Orchestra. During her junior year, she was awarded honorable mention by the Duquesne Office of the Provost’s Outstanding Scholarship Award for her research on Schoenberg’s “Transfigured Night,” which she presented at the 2013 Undergraduate Research and Scholarship Symposium.

Meyers has frequently performed with area ensembles such as the Johnstown, Altoona, Butler County, and Washington County Symphony Orchestras. During her last two years at Duquesne, she worked as the orchestra librarian and assistant program manager at Three Rivers Young Peoples Orchestras, and also taught violin to preschoolers at the John Heinz Family Center in Pittsburgh. Currently she is a graduate assistant for Research Services at WVU’s Downtown Campus Library while she works toward a master’s degree in music education in the WVU School of Music.

Rachel Barton Pine will perform the Samuel Barber Violin Concerto with the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra during concerts Sept. 19 and 20 titled “Rejoicing in a Kaleidoscope of Sound,” at the Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences in Charleston. Barton Pine has appeared as soloist with many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras. She has been featured on “Performance Today,” “From the Top,” CBS “Sunday Morning,” and NBC’s “Today.” She holds top prizes from the J.S. Bach (gold medal), Queen Elisabeth, Paganini, Kreisler, Szigeti and Montreal international competitions.

Another student from McTeer’s studio, violinist Diego Gabete Rodriguez, will also perform with the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra during the concerts with Barton Pine. Diego, who is from Spain, is a doctoral student in the WVU School of Music and concertmaster of the WVU Symphony Orchestra. He represented the state of West Virginia, WVU, and the Eastern Division of the United States at the MTNA National Competition in Chicago in March 2014.

-WVU-

cl/9/19/14

CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, College of Creative Arts
304-293-4359, Charlene.Lattea@mail.wvu.edu

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