WOODSTOCK CHAMBER ORCHESTRA CONCERT AT BARD HIGHLIGHTS THREE WORKS BY MOZART May 9th program features Rhinebeck native Emily Schaad and Meesun Hong
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.-The Woodstock Chamber Orchestra (WCO) concludes their 2000-2001 concert series at Bard College with a performance of three works by Mozart on Wednesday, May 9. The program, presented by The Bard Center, begins at 8:00 p.m. in Olin Hall. Admission to the concert is $12 for adults, $6 for non-Bard students, and free for children 12 and under and Bard students, staff, and faculty.
The concert features Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola, with violoist Emily Schaad and violinist Meesun Hong, the overture to Don Giovanni, and the Symphony No. 39 in E-flat.
Violinist Meesun Hong, a native of Spartanburg, South Carolina, began her studies at the age of seven with Carol Roosevelt. Since then, she has won top prizes in many competitions, including the Corpus Christi International String Competition, the Kingsville International Competition, the Music Teachers National Association Competition, and the Dorothy P. Starling Scholarship Competition. She received a B.A. in music composition from Princeton University and will receive an M.A. in violin performance from the Juilliard School in May. Hong has performed extensively throughout the United States and Eastern Europe as a soloist and in recital, and has participated in the Tanglewood Music Center, Aspen Music Festival, Pacific Music Festival (Japan), Shira Winter Festival (Israel), and New York String Seminar. She has played with the New Juilliard Ensemble, Absolute Ensemble, Prometheus Chamber Symphony, and Jupiter Symphony. A recipient of a William Fulbright grant, she will study with Thomas Brandis at the Hochshule der Kunste in Berlin this fall. Her teachers have included include Ronald Copes, Joel Smirnoff, Robert Mann, Felix Galimir, Samuel Rhodes, Dorothy Delay, Kurt Sassmannshaus, Donald Weilerstein, and Steve Mackey.
Rhinebeck native Emily Schaad is a 1999 graduate of the Curtis Institute, where she studied with Karen Tuttle. She currently resides in Poughkeepsie, where she has a private studio for violin and viola students. Schaad directs two student string orchestras at the Dutchess Community College Music School, as well as the instrumental music program at Poughkeepsie Day School. She is a violist and violinist with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic. An avid fiddler as well as a classical musician, Schaad enjoys playing and hearing all types of traditional music.
Woodstock Chamber Orchestra artistic director, Luis Garcia-Renart's "supreme gift as conductor is his ability to inspire and elicit depth of expression from all his musicians, whatever level of technical ability," writes music critic Kitty Montgomery in the Daily Freeman. Garcia-Renart is a professor of music at Bard College and also serves on the faculties of Vassar College, the Piatigorsky seminars at the University of Southern California, and Yale University's summer programs in chamber music. He was born in Barcelona, Spain, and studied at the Music School of the National University and the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico. From 1951 until 1956, his cello studies were supervised by Pablo Casals. He also studied directly with Casals in France and in Puerto Rico until 1960, when he won a scholarship to study at the Conservatory of Moscow with Rostropovich and Khachaturian. Garcia-Renart attended the conservatories of Bern and Basel, Switzerland, and Trossingen, Germany, where he was a pupil of Sándor Veress and Sándor Vegh. Prizes awarded Garcia-Renart include the Casals International Contests in Paris in 1956, Xalpa in 1959, and Israel in 1961. He also received the Harriet Cohen Cello Prize in London in 1959. In addition to conducting, Garcia-Renart performs frequently as a soloist in recitals and chamber concerts nationally and abroad.
The concert is made possible in part with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and through the generosity of the Homeland Foundation and the Leon Levy Foundation at Bard College. For further information or to order tickets, call 845-246-7045.
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(4.23.01)
[Please Note: The concerts will be repeated at 8:00 p.m. on May 5, at Holy Cross Church in Kingston, and at 3:00 p.m. on May 6, at St. John's Roman Catholic Church in West Hurley.]