USC Announces the Maestro’s Farewell Season

Donald Portnoy retires after the USC Symphony Orchestra’s 2016-2017 Season

The USC Symphony Orchestra’s upcoming season celebrates Maestro Donald Portnoy’s 31 years leading Carolina’s premier orchestra. His music leadership has drawn out the very best in thousands of young musicians. The Ira McKissick Koger Professor of Fine Arts retires as director of the USC Symphony Orchestra and Orchestral Studies after the 2016-2017 academic year.

Portnoy has received countless accolades throughout his years conducting the university’s orchestra – one of the top university orchestras in the region. He will continue to teach conducting and violin and direct the Conductors Institute of South Carolina at USC.

Photo Credit:  Keith Trammel

Join us for our monumental season opener with Marina Lomazov

The Russian Romantics Thur., Sept. 13, 2016
Marina Lomazov, piano

The first concert of the new season includes Maestro Donald Portnoy conducting Tchaikovsky's powerful Symphony No. 4 in F minor.  Our guest artist Marina Lomazov will be performing  Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor. Praised by critics as “a diva of the piano” (The Salt Lake City Tribune), “a mesmerizing risk-taker” (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland), and “simply spectacular” (Chicago International Music Foundation), Ukrainian-American pianist Marina Lomazov has established herself as one of the most passionate and charismatic performers on the concert scene today. Following prizes in the Cleveland International Piano Competition, William Kapell International Piano Competition, Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, and Hilton Head International Piano Competition, Lomazov has given performances worldwide. She is the Ira McKissick Koger Professor of Fine Arts at USC and a Steinway Artist.  

All concerts take place at the Koger Center for the Arts (1051 Greene St., Columbia, SC) at 7:30 p.m.

A pre-concert Prelude Talk with Maestro Portnoy takes place at 6:45 p.m. prior to each performance.

Season subscriptions: Save with a season subscription (7 concerts) and enjoy the best seats in the house: $150

Discounts: $110 seniors, USC faculty and staff; $45 students.


Single concert tickets:  $30 general public; Discounts: $25 seniors, USC faculty and staff; $8 students.

Call 803-251-2222 or Koger Box Office, corner of Greene and Park Streets (M-F 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) or online at kogercenterforthearts.com.

The USC Symphony Orchestra presents Poems and Songs on March 22

Mezzo-soprano Janet Hopkins and USC Concerto-Aria winners take the stage

The Washington Post called 16-year veteran of the New York Metropolitan Opera, Janet Hopkins, “angel-voiced.” Hopkins, associate professor of voice at USC, will sing Vaughan Williams’ "Four Last Songs" and Gustav Mahler’s "Rückert-Lieder."

Poems and Songs takes place at the Koger Center for the Arts on Tuesday, March 22 at 7:30 p.m.

Gustav Mahler brings Friedrich Rückert’s poems to life with his luxuriant melodic setting for "Rückert-Lieder." Rückert wrote beautiful examples of German lyric romantic poems that Mahler collected for this set of songs. Ralph Vaughn Williams sets the texts of "Four Last Songs" – poems written by his wife Ursula who penned several books of poetry throughout her lifetime as well as a biography of her late husband. "Procris" and "Menelaus" deal with figures from ancient Greek and Roman mythology and epic poetry while "Tired" and "Hands, Eyes, and Heart" depict images of love between a husband and wife.

Janet Hopkins, associate professor of voice at the University of South Carolina, debuted as a soprano at The Metropolitan Opera during the 1991-1992 season in The Ghost of Versailles, returning during the next seasons for Siegrune in Die Walküre, Parsifal and The Overseer in Elektra. While on tour with The Met in Japan, she sang a series of solo recitals in Tokyo, garnering extensive critical acclaim.

As a mezzo-soprano, Hopkins sang Così fan Tutte with the Eugene Opera and served apprenticeships with the Michigan Opera Theatre and Des Moines Metro Opera. While making her vocal change, Hopkins was awarded grants and prizes from The Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition, the American Opera Auditions and the Wagner Society Grant along with a study grant from the Singers Development Fund of The Metropolitan Opera. In addition to touring extensively with The Met, she has performed in Japan, throughout Europe and the U.S. and has appeared at Carnegie Hall and at the opening ceremonies of the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, NY.

Winners of the University of South Carolina Concerto–Aria Competition also perform on this concert and USC students pursuing their doctorate in conducting take the stage.

The Program

Franz Schubert- Overture to Rosamunde, Erik Garriott conductor

Claude Debussy- Première rapsodie, Concerto-Aria winner Jake Mann, clarinet; Inmo Kang conductor

Jean Sibelius- Violin Concerto in D minor, op. 47, Concerto-Aria winner Liangjun Zhou, violin; Eunseok Seo, conductor

Gustav Mahler- Rückert-Lieder, Janet Hopkins, mezzo-soprano

Ralph Vaughan Williams- Four Last Songs, Janet Hopkins, mezzo-soprano

Tickets are $30 general public; $25 senior citizens, USC faculty and staff; $8 students. Call 803-251-2222 or Koger Box Office, corner of Greene and Park Streets (M-F 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) or online at kogercenterforthearts.com [http://www.kogercenterforthearts.com/event.php?id=73]

USC Symphony Orchestra presents an evening of film scores

Award-winning John Williams, composer for Star Wars, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park and more

The USC Symphony Orchestra presents John Williams Extravaganza! with guest artist Michael Ludwig, violin, on Tuesday, October 20, at 7:30 p.m. at the Koger Center for the Arts.

The entire family will enjoy the signature editions of composer John Williams’ most beloved film score classics. The music of Williams may be more widely known than that of any other composer on the university’s premier orchestra season schedule. Williams has almost singlehandedly shaped the movie and television music of the past four decades. His music for the Star Wars trilogy, the Indiana Jones series, Superman, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., Hook, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter and many others, made his name recognized in households throughout the world.

Williams is recognized in the industry with five Oscars (nominations for 49, second only to Walt Disney), 21 Grammys, four Golden Globes, two Emmys, seven awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, several gold and platinum records, and many honorary degrees and other awards.

             

Most recently he has been working on the score for Star Wars: Episode VII, due for release in December 2015.

Calling all Superheroes 

Children and adults are encouraged to come to the concert dressed as their favorite John Williams movie superhero!

Guest Artist Michael Ludwig

Hailed by Strad Magazine for his “effortless, envy-provoking technique… sweet tone, brilliant expression, and grand style,” guest artist Michael Ludwig has a multi-faceted career as a soloist, recording artist, and chamber musician. A highly sought-after soloist, he has performed on four continents and has recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, among others. Acclaimed musician Van Cliburn said, “A musician of profound artistry and consummate integrity, Michael Ludwig possesses a gorgeous sound that he projects with heartfelt passion and intensity.”

The University of South Carolina’s premier orchestra ensemble, led by acclaimed music director Donald Portnoy, receives accolades for its fine performances. World-renowned guest artists join the ensemble throughout the year to bring you a stirring six-concert season with music by the most dynamic composers.

“...the USC Symphony continues to rise to the top of musical achievement in higher education.” –Free Times

Concert tickets

Single concert tickets are $30 general public; Discounts: $25 senior citizens, USC faculty and staff; $8 students. Call 803-777-7500 or Koger Box Office, corner of Greene and Park Streets (M-F 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) or online by clicking HERE or visit kogercenterforthearts.com.

Paremski Plays Tchaikovsky - September 15, 2015

University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra opens the season with “empress of the keyboard,” Natasha Paremski

The September 15 concert includes music of Tchaikovsky and Sibelius

The University of South Carolina’s premier orchestra ensemble, led by acclaimed music director Donald Portnoy, receives accolades for its fine performances. The first concert of the 2015-2016 season brings guest artist pianist Natasha Paremski, called “empress of the keyboard” by the Kalamazoo Gazette. The San Francisco Classical Voice wrote Paremski, “… has a real feeling for lush romantic music, the ability to handle blazingly rapid passagework, beautifully executed trills, and all made to look very easy.” Paremski will play Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor.

The concert takes place at the Koger Center for the Arts on Tuesday, September 15 at 7:30 p.m.

The Concerto nearly brought the composer and his friend Nikolay Rubinstein to blows. The work was met by harsh criticism from his friend, whom he had asked for advice. The suggested changes did not sit well with Tchaikovsky and were not made. Tchaikovsky dedicated the work, not to Rubenstein as was first intended, but to Hans von Bülow, the famous German pianist and conductor who already liked Tchaikovsky’s music.

Ironically, it was Rubinstein who eventually showed the Concerto off to its best advantage, admitting he had been wrong about it several years later. The eccentricities of the First Piano Concerto, some of which may have caused Rubinstein’s disparagement, are now considered some of its greatest charms.

Also on the September program is Finnish composer Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2 in D major, his most popular symphony. The symphony, associated with the Finnish landscape and a patriotic program, was a work the composer actually conceived in Italy. The symphony was begun in winter 1901 in Rapallo, Italy, finished in Finland in 1902 and first performed by the Helsinki Philharmonic Society in March 1902. Finland was undergoing turmoil at the turn of the 20th century and was experiencing a nationalistic fervor against the oppression of its Russian occupiers. Although the composer claimed no patriotic intent was inherent in the work, Helsinki audiences had understood the new symphony to be an overt expression of the political conflict reigning over Finland.

Tickets now on sale

Single concert tickets are $30 general public; Discounts: $25 senior citizens, USC faculty and staff; $8 students. Call 803-777-7500 or Koger Box Office, corner of Greene and Park Streets (M-F 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) or online at kogercenterforthearts.com.

Save with a season subscription

Save with a season subscription (6 concerts) and enjoy the best seats in the house: $150 general public; Discounts: $110 senior citizens, USC faculty and staff; $45 students.

See the season’s details at sc.edu/music/orchestra-season

Pianist Marina Lomazov at center stage perfoming Grieg's Piano Concerto with orchestra

A well-known piano concerto will be performed by a popular and dynamic pianist at the next University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra concert. The Tuesday, Nov. 13 concert will feature Marina Lomazov performing the Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 16 by Edvard Grieg.

The Piano Concerto is Grieg’s best-known work and among the most-performed piano concerti. The opening bars – a roar of tympani and dazzling piano entrance – are immediately recognizable even to a casual classical music listener.

"The Grieg is a quintessential romantic concerto with broad emotional range and brilliant piano writing, combined with beautiful lyricism and atmosphere," said Dr. Lomazov, a Steinway Artist. "It is a virtuosic piece of music that requires endurance, pacing and wide range of sound and color."

This will be the first time she has performed the concerto in Columbia.

Performances by Dr. Lomazov in the Southeast frequently sell out and she also had the same impact recently in China. Her extensive summer tour there culminated in a sold-out concert at the Shanghai City Theater. Talk Magazine Shanghai called her performance "a dramatic blend of boldness and wit." She has also performed throughout North America and South America, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russia and Japan and been soloist with the Boston Pops, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Chernigov Philharmonic (Ukraine), the KUG Orchester Graz (Austria), the Bollington Festival Orchestra (England) and the Piccolo Spoleto Festival Orchestra. Her concerts have been broadcast on National Public Radio’s Performance Today, the Bravo cable channel and WNYC’s Young Artist Showcase.

A native of Ukraine, Dr. Lomazov studied at the Kiev Conservatory before immigrating to the U.S. where she earned degrees from the Juilliard School and the Eastman School of Music. She is an associate professor at the USC School of Music and Artistic Director of the Southeastern Piano Festival.

The Grieg concerto won international fame after its 1869 premiere. Franz Liszt was a fan of the concerto and provided suggestions for improvements which the composer incorporated.  In 1909 it became the first piano concerto ever recorded and portions of it have been used in everything from Nike commercials to the movies Lolita and The Adventures of Milo and Otis.

"It's a thrill to perform a widely-known piece of music - its beauty is the foundation of its universal appeal,” Dr. Lomazov said. “Whether one hears it for the first or for the hundredth time, the work stands strong and fresh on its own." 

The concert will open with the Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus ballet by Ludwig van Beethoven. The ballet and the full score have rarely been performed since the premiere in 1801, but the five-minute overture has become a concert mainstay.

“It is very quick and lively – a great opening for a concert,” said orchestra Music Director Donald Portnoy.

The overture will be followed by Richard Strauss’ Death and Transfiguration (Tod und Verklärung), Op. 24, a tone poem depicting the death of an artist. Although only 26 when he wrote the work in 1898 it was his third great symphonic poem. For the first time, he provided a details synopsis of the narrative the music expressed – the final hours of “a man who had striven for the highest ideals…”

“Strauss is one of the mainstays of the orchestral repertoire,” said Maestro Portnoy. “It isn’t played that often because it’s not easy, but it is something the orchestra needs to play and audiences need to experience.”

The concert takes place at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 13 at the Koger Center for the Arts, Assembly Street at College Street. Tickets are $25; $20 for USC faculty and staff, seniors and military; and $8 for students. Call (803) 251-2222 or go to http://www.capitoltickets.com/.

Acclaimed clarinetist solos with USC Symphony Orchestra

Clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein, an Avery Fisher Career Grant winner who has appeared with orchestras and chamber music groups around the world, will perform for the first time with the University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra Tuesday, Oct. 16. He will be soloist for Carl Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto.

The concert will also include performances of Aaron Coplan’s Billy the Kid Suite and Espana by Emmanuel Chabrier.

Fiterstein first performed the concerto with orchestra at the 2001 Carl Nielsen International Music Competition and Festival – and won the first place award in the clarinet division. A few months later he performed it in the composer’s native Denmark with the Danish National Orchestra.

“I really have a personal connection with it,” said Fiterstein. “It was such a great experience to play the concerto with that orchestra because they know it so well. I can’t imagine a better group to perform this with.”

Nielsen composed the concerto in 1928 for Aage Oxenvad of the Copenhagen Wind Quintet as part of a plan to write a work for each quintet member inspired by the personality of the instrument and the player. Nielsen described the clarinet as “at once warm-hearted, and completely hysterical, gentle as balm and screaming as a streetcar on poorly lubricated rails” which also happened to match Oxenvad’s irascible personality. The Clarinet Concerto unfolds in one continuous movement, with four sections related to symphonic structure emerging.

Although Mr. Fiterstein has performed the concerto several times in the decade since winning the Nielsen competition, it isn’t programed by many orchestras due to its difficulty. But just before coming to Columbia, he will play it twice with the St. Paul (Minn.) Chamber Orchestra.

Like much of Nielsen’s music, the concerto received little immediate attention outside Denmark. In music circles the composer was widely admired and championed by Leonard Bernstein and others, but only during the past two decades has his music been performed regularly around the world.

Mr. Fiterstein recently completed his fourth summer performing at the Marlboro Music Festival and has toured with Musicians from Marlboro. He was a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center CMS II program for young performers and continues to perform as a guest artist with the Chamber Music Society. He has been soloist with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, the China National Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Chamber Orchestra and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and has performed with the American, Borromeo and Daedalus string quartets and given recitals at the National Gallery of Art, the Kennedy Center, Carnegie’s Weill Hall and the Louvre. A native of Belarus, he was raised in Israel and graduated from the Juilliard School.

His recording of new works by composer Ronn Yedidia was released on the Naxos label this year. A Gramophone magazine review stated "Fiterstein appears to be capable of anything a composer could possibly ask.  His sound can be warm or penetrating, he travels the instrument's range with nimble assurance and he has an exceptional command of dynamic extremes … Fiterstein puts his multi-faceted artistry to splendid use.”

While this will be Mr. Fiterstein’s first performance with the USC Symphony he has previously worked with Music Director Donald Portnoy. He is married to the violinist Meira Silverstein, a native of Columbia who studied violin with Dr. Portnoy.

Fiterstein is one of several soloists making a first appearance with the orchestra this season. Zeyu Victor Li, a semi-finalist in the 2012 Yehudi Menuhin Young Violinist Competition, will perform Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major and the Brasil Guitar Duo will give the U.S. premiere of a concerto by Paulo Bellinati.

Copland’s 1939 Billy the Kid Suite, inspired by American folk songs, was written for what would become the New York City Ballet. The ballet and music are a narrative through the outlaw’s life. The suite was considered a breakthrough for Copland setting the stage for his Rodeo and Appalachian Spring ballet scores.

Chabrier was a lawyer and full-time civil servant until Espana. He was inspired to compose the “orchestral rhapsody” in 1883 after absorbing and researching folk tunes in Spain.

“My rhythms, my tunes will arouse the whole audience to a feverish pitch of excitement; everyone will embrace his neighbor madly,” he wrote of the piece. It’s not recorded if everyone embraced during the Paris premiere, but they did demand an immediate encore. The work made Chabrier a celebrated and influential composer whose admirers included Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Richard Strauss, Erik Satie and Igor Stravinsky.

The concert takes place at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 16 at the Koger Center for the Arts, on Assembly Street between Greene and College streets, Columbia, SC. Tickets are $25; $20 for USC faculty and staff, seniors and military; and $8 for students. Call (803) 251-2222 or go to capitoltickets.com.

Philadelphia Orchestra concertmaster returns home to open orchestra season

David Kim, concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, will return to the city he considers home to kick off the University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra season. For the Thursday, Sept. 20 concert Mr. Kim will perform Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26, one of the most popular violin concertos.

The orchestra will also perform the Symphony No. 4 in E minor by Johannes Brahms.

At 3 Kim began playing violin and several years later began studying with famed pedagogue Dorothy DeLay. He and his mother would drive eight hours from the family’s home in Pennsylvania to New York for his lessons. When he was 8, the family moved to Columbia where his parents took jobs at USC. He and his mother flew to New York for lessons every other Saturday and a few years later Kim began making the trips on his own.

He quickly became known as Columbia’s musical wunderkind performing frequently around the city.

“The most important and meaningful years of my childhood were in Columbia,” said Kim who attended Caughman Road Elementary and Hopkins Middle schools. "I had a great social life and the warmest memories. I keep in touch with friends I had in the seventh and eighth grade."

Kim received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the Juilliard School and in 1986 was the only American violinist to win a prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition. After a decade working as a soloist with orchestras around the world, he joined the Philadelphia Orchestra as concertmaster in 1999. He continues to perform as soloist and also teaches internationally. He arrives in Columbia after two weeks of teaching and performing in Japan. He lives outside Philadelphia with his wife and two daughters.

When Donald Portnoy became Music Director of the USC Symphony Orchestra in 1986, “I immediately heard about this wonderful violinist who grew up here.” Kim was the soloist with the USC Symphony Orchestra for its first concert at the new Koger Center for the Arts in 1989. Since then he has returned every few years to perform with the orchestra, the last time in 2006.

“Every time he performs so many people come to see him and catch up,” Portnoy said.

Coming back to Columbia is always special.

“It’s so touching and means so much to me,” Kim said.

The Bruch is a perfect piece for a happy homecoming concert.

“The concerto is exciting, compact and accessible,” Kim says. “It’s tuneful, soulful and flashy.”

The concerto was completed in 1866 and considerably revised with the advice of violinist Joseph Joachim the following year. The first movement is unusual in that it is a prelude to the second movement.  The smooth march has a melody first taken by the flutes with the solo violin entering with a short cadenza. This repeats, serving as an introduction to the main portion of the movement which contains a strong first theme and a melodic and slower second theme. The orchestra flows into the second movement, connected by a single low note from the first violins.

The slow second movement is admired for its powerful melody, considered the heart of the concerto. The expansive themes presented by the violin are underscored by a constantly moving orchestra part, keeping the movement alive and helping it flow from one part to the next.

The final movement starts with a quiet but intense introduction that yields to the soloist's exuberant dance-like theme. The second subject is an example of Romantic lyricism, a slower melody cutting into the movement several times before the upbeat dance theme returns. The piece ends with a huge accelerando, leading to a fiery finish.

The concert will open with Brahms’ Symphony No. 4. Completed in 1885, Brahms referred to it humorously as "a few entr'actes and polkas which I happened to have lying about," but he was quite aware of what he had achieved in this work. His musicals friends and advisors didn’t like the symphony. They were especially put off by the final movement, written as a passacaglia that was seen as a throwback to the Baroque era. Eventually the austere and tragic symphony was judged to be the composer’s most modern work and a summing up of all he knew about composing for orchestra. It was also his final symphony.

The 2012 – 2013 season will be comprised of seven concerts – one more than in recent years – with no increase in season ticket prices. Among the soloists will be pianist and USC Associate Professor Marina Lomazov, rising violin star Zeyu Victor Li and the Brasil Guitar Duo, along with a Tribute to Richard Wagner on the 200th anniversary of his birth and a night of tunes from the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein musicals.

For the full season visit http://www.music.sc.edu/ea/orchestra/

USC Symphony Orchestra, 7:30 p.m. Sept. 20. Koger Center for the Arts, Assembly and Greene streets, Columbia. Season tickets are $115 for the general public, $85 for USC faculty and staff and seniors, and $42 for students. Individual tickets are $25, $20 for seniors and USC faculty and staff, $8 for students. Call (803) 251-2222, go to http://capitoltickets.com/ or download a subscription form at http://www.music.sc.edu/ea/orchestra/schedule.html