OVER 30 BARD STUDENTS WILL PERFORM IN NEW YORK CITY FOR BENEFIT CONCERT DEDICATED TO THE FAMILIES OF THE VICTIMS OF THE SEPTEMBER 11 TRAGEDY
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.-The One World Symphony--founded by students of the Conductors Institute at Bard--will give two benefit concerts for the victims of the September 11 tragedy at the World Trade Center in New York. The concerts will be held on Saturday, October 20, at 8:00 p.m. (St. Luke's Lutheran Church, West 46th Street, Manhattan); and Sunday, October 21, at 4:00 p.m. (Brooklyn Oratory at St. Boniface, 190 Duffield Street, Brooklyn).
Over 30 Bard students and 10 members of the community--participants in Bard's Vocal Ensemble, Community Chorus, and Chamber Orchestra--will join One World Symphony to perform at these concerts. The program features performances of Mozart's Requiem and Ave Verum Corpus, as well as Samuel Barber's String Quartet and a world premiere performance of Margarita Zelenaia's Life is Beautiful, a work for baritone solo and chamber orchestra. Music director and conductor David Hong, a master's degree candidate at the Conductors Institute (CI) at Bard, dedicated this first concert of the season to the families affected by the September tragedy. Hong says that they chose to perform the Requiem because the music expresses "immense passion and a longing for peace." He comments that Life is Beautiful, which features a text from Chekhov, is a work that "strikingly connects with our current crisis in its portrayal of restoration of harmony after discord."
Hong and concertmaster Marina Kitaychik met while she was a violinist in the CI orchestra in 2000. They formed One World Symphony with three other musicians from CI and have also drawn members from Juilliard, Mannes, and Manhattan School of Music. In total, over 100 musicians will perform in the concerts.
This is the third year of the Conductors Institute's affiliation with Bard College and marks the first year that it offers a master of fine arts degree in conducting. The six-week summer Institute is designed so that there are new instructors and a new repertoire every week, assuring the participants exposure to a variety of expert opinions. Since 1999, visiting faculty in the summer program have included maestri Leon Botstein, Apo Hsu, Daniel Lewis, Amy Mills, George Rothman, Alfred Savia, and James Setapen, and composers Peter Boyer, George Crumb, Anthony Korf, Roberto Pace, Conrad Pope, George Perle, and Raymond Wojcik. Harold Farberman, director, founded the Conductors Institute 22 years ago, seeking to fill a void in the United States with a summer training program for conductors. "I hit on a successful formula that remains the same to this day--vigorous technical training and promotion of American music in a cooperative atmosphere," he says.
David Hong is also the assistant conductor of the Regina Opera Company, and has served as music director of the IES Singverein in Vienna, Austria; chorusmaster of the New York Symphonic Arts Ensemble; and assistant conductor of the Twin Cities Ballet Company and New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra. He received an artist diploma in orchestral conducting at Stadt Wien Konservatorium, where he was awarded the Maria Theresia Silver Medal.
The general admission of $12 for adults and $8 for students and seniors will be donated to the Uniformed Firefighters' Association (UFA) Widows and Children's Fund. The concerts are sponsored in conjunction with the Bard-St. Stephen's Alumni/ae Association of Bard College. For further information, call David Hong at 917-576-9983, St. Luke's Lutheran Church at 212-246-3540, or e-mail [email protected].
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