Woodstock Chamber Orchestra Performs Eroica Symphony Friday, May 1

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—The Woodstock Chamber Orchestra (WCO) brings its Thirtieth Season Celebrations to a close with a performance of Beethoven’s monumental Symphony No. 3, the Eroica (Heroic) Symphony. David Leighton, Artistic Director of the WCO, will conduct this towering work, as well as Beethoven’s concert aria, “Ah, perfido!” with soprano Cheryl Warfield, and two intimate pieces by Frederick Delius, “On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring” and “Summer Night on the River”. Mozart’s Overture to Così  fan tutte will be led by guest conductor, Bard Conservatory of Music student Jordan Delphos. The performance takes place on Friday, May 1 at 8 p.m. in Olin Hall. The program will be repeated at Saturday, May 2 at Pointe of Praise Family Life Center in Kingston, and on Sunday, May 3, at Bearsville Theater, in Woodstock. Tickets are $20.00 for adults and $5.00 for students. For more information call 845 246-7045.

The Overture will be conducted by Jordan Delphos as part of the WCO’s campaign to showcase talented new conductors. Jordan began violin lessons at the age of five and was already playing in orchestras and participating in solo competitions by her seventh birthday. She was concertmaster of the Maryland All State Orchestra in the first year she was old enough to participate, was a founding member of the Vivaldi All Girls Orchestra, and concertmaster of the American Youth Philharmonic Orchestra when the Orchestra made its debut at Carnegie Hall with renowned trumpeter Arturo Sandoval. During the inaugural tour of the Youth Orchestra of the Americas, Jordan made her conducting debut with the Orchestra at the Wolf Trap stage in Vienna, Virginia. She has been on eight extensive tours with the Orchestra and was selected to perform with Paquito D’Rivera in his “50 Years of Performance” concert at Carnegie Hall. Jordan graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy in 2003 and earned a Bachelor of Music Degree in Violin Performance from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2007, where she received the University’s Benjamin T. Swadler Orchestra award. She was co-founder of the University’s first Latin Jazz ensemble, Charanga Carolina, and an active participant in the University’s Baroque Ensemble. Jordan is currently a graduate student of Orchestral Conducting under the direction of Harold Farberman at The Bard College Conservatory of Music.

Cheryl Warfield, known to our area from her performances in Il Trovatore, Carmen and Don Giovanni with the WCO, appeared this season with the Lyric Opera of Chicago in Porgy and Bess and returns to us to present Beethoven’s dramatic aria, “Ah, perfido!” This aria, perhaps better described as a dramatic scene for soprano and orchestra, takes the heroine from her first impassioned outbreak, “Oh, betrayer!” through an amazing gamut of emotional states ranging from outward rage to introverted self mortification, and involving wildly diverse musical expressions all skillfully crafted by Beethoven into a “mini-opera”.   Contrasting this almost superhuman level of passion, Frederick Delius’ “On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring” and “Summer Night on the River” are studies in tranquility and tenderness, and Mozart’s Overture to Cosi fan tutte stands as a sort of philosophical summing up and acceptance of all the vagaries of human existence.

The Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, formed in 1980 by musicians from the Woodstock area, is now comprised of professional musicians from the entire Hudson Valley. The WCO regularly commissions music by local and regional composers and each season performs in Woodstock, Kingston, Saugerties, and at Bard College. 

Please call (845) 246-7045 or visit our website (www.wco-online.com) for information and updates.

This event was last updated on 04-24-2009

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