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

Orchestra’s 2012 – 2013 season promises variety and excitement

The University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra brings back old friends and introduces new ones in what promises to be one of its most dynamic and diverse seasons ever.

The season starts with the orchestra and Columbia welcoming home Philadelphia Orchestra concertmaster David Kim, who grew up in Columbia. Other featured artists are Marina Lomazov, the area’s most beloved pianist, a 15-year-old violin virtuoso and a Brazilian guitar duo. The orchestra will celebrate the music of Richard Wagner on the 200^th anniversary of the composer’s birth and showcase the musical theater gems of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Among the composers in the spotlight are Brahms, Bruch, Nielsen, Grieg, Copland and Tchaikovsky.

“This is an exciting season,” said Dr. Donald Portnoy, Music Director of the orchestra. “We’re pleased to be able to offer such a great variety of great music with soloists of a caliber one rarely sees with a university orchestra.”

The upcoming season has seven concerts (up from six), but the price for a season subscription remains the same– only $115 for the general public with discounts for USC employees and seniors.

The season opens Sept. 20 with David Kim performing the Violin Concerto by Max Bruch. Philadelphia Orchestra concertmaster since 1999, Mr. Kim began studying with the famed pedagogue Dorothy DeLay at the age of eight. When his family moved to Columbia two years later he began commuting to New York alone to continue his studies. Mr. Kim has recently performed the Saint-Saens Concerto No. 3, all the violin solos from the complete Brandenburg Concertos with The Philadelphia Orchestra and the Vivaldi Four Seasons as conductor and soloist with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia in Philadelphia and Beijing.

Clarinet player Alexander Fiterstein, winner of a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant Award, will make his first appearance with the orchestra Oct. 16 performing Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto as well as several klezmer-inspired pieces written specifically for him. He has been soloist with orchestras in Venezuela, China, Denmark, Israel, Korea and Japan and at venues including the National Gallery of Art, the Kennedy Center, Carnegie’s Weill Hall and the Louvre in Paris. As a chamber musician he has performed with Daniel Barenboim, Emanuel Ax and Pinchas Zukerman. Mr. Fiterstein was a member of the prestigious Chamber Music Society II of Lincoln Center from 2004 to 2006 and continues to perform with the Society.

He also has a Columbia and USC connection; he is married to violinist Meira Silverstein, who grew up in Columbia and studied with Dr. Portnoy.

The vibrant and popular pianist Marina Lomazov will perform Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor, op. 16 for the Nov. 13 concert. Dr. Lomazov, an associate professor at USC and Artistic Director of the Southeastern Piano Festival, has performed in nearly all of the 50 states, South America, China, Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russia and Japan.

A giant of the classical music world – Richard Wagner – will be honored at the Jan. 27 concert. The orchestra will perform Prelude to Act III from Lohengrin, “Siegfried Idyll,” Prelude and “Liebestod” from Tristan und Isolde and “Ride of the Valkyries” from The Ring of the Nibelung.

The orchestra celebrates Valentine’s Day with songs from the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein musicals Carousel, The King and I, Oklahoma, The Sound of Music, South Pacific and State Fair Feb. 12.

A rising star in the classical music world joins the orchestra March 26 for the Violin Concerto in D Major by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Zeyu Victor Li, 15, has gained widespread attention for his magnificent feel for the music as well as his technique. The Chinese musician was a semi-finalist in the 2012 Yehudi Menuhin Young Violinists International Competition.

The season wraps up April 25 with the springtime sounds of Brasil Guitar Duo. João Luiz and Douglas Lora met in their native São Paulo, Brazil as teenage guitar students and have been performing together for 15 years. With the Philharmonic they will perform Concerto for Two Guitars and Orchestra written for them by Brazilian composer Paulo Bellinati.

All concerts take place at 7:30 p.m. at the Koger Center for the Arts, 1015 Greene St. (Assembly and Greene streets) in Columbia. Season tickets are $115 for the general public, $85 for USC faculty and staff and seniors, and $42 for students. Call (803) 251-2222, go to capitoltickets.com or download a subscription form at http://www.music.sc.edu/ea/orchestra/schedule.html

USC Symphony Orchestra 2012 – 2013 Season

Thursday, Sept. 20
Johannes Brahms               Symphony No. 4 in E minor, op. 98
Max Bruch                             Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, op. 26
David Kim, violin

Tuesday, Oct. 16
Carl Nielsen                          Clarinet Concerto, op. 57
Alexander Fiterstein, clarinet
Aaron Copland                     Billy the Kid: Suite
Emmanuel Chabrier            España

Tuesday, Nov. 13
Ludwig Van Beethoven      Overture to Prometheus
Richard Strauss                   Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration)
Edvard Grieg             Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 16
Marina Lomazov, piano

Sunday, January 27
Richard Wagner                   Prelude to Act III from Lohengrin,  “Siegfried Idyll,” Prelude and “Liebestod” from Tristan und Isolde, “Ride of the Valkyries” from The Ring of the Nibelung
Performances by winners of the USC Concerto–Aria Competition.

Tuesday, Feb. 12
An Evening of Rodgers and Hammerstein Classics
Music from Carousel, State Fair, The King and I, South Pacific, Sound of Music, and Oklahoma featuring Tina Milhorn Stallard (soprano), Janet Hopkins (mezzo-soprano), Walter Cuttino, (tenor), Jacob Will (bass-baritone), and chorus.  Original Broadway orchestrations of Robert Russell Bennett and Don Walker.

Tuesday, March 26
Howard Hanson                   Symphony No. 2, op. 30 (Romantic)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky     Violin Concerto in D Major, op. 35
Zeyu Victor Li, violin

Thursday, April 25
Bedrich Smetana                 Moldau
Paulo Bellinati                      Concerto for Two Guitars
Brasil Guitar Duo
Ottorino Respighi                Pini di Roma (Pines of Rome)

The University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra season ends with an extraordinary production: Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin.

 The multi-media concert/drama April 15 tells the story of Jewish prisoners who memorized and performed Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem at Terezin, a Jewish ghetto and prison during World War II.

Defiant Requiem combines Verdi's magnificent music with testimony from survivors of the original chorus, a propaganda film about the camp, and actors speaking the words of prisoners about their experience. Edgar Krasa, who was a chorus member at Terezin, will give a pre-concert talk.

The USC Symphony Orchestra concert will be the first time the work has been performed in the Southeast. Defiant Requiem, created by conductor Murry Sidlin, has been performed only 13 times previously including at Terezin and the Kennedy Center. Sidlin will conduct the performance by the USC Symphony Orchestra and the USC Concert Choir, USC Chorus, the York County Choral Society, Mars Hill College Chamber Singers and soloists Tina Stallard, Janet Hopkins, Walter Cuttino and Jacob Will.

The 7:30 p.m. event will take place at the Koger Center for the Arts. Krasa’s talk will be at 6:30 p.m. at the center.

Sidlin first came across the remarkable story of Verdi at Terezin in the late 1990s.

"I was walking down a street past a bookstore that had a sale rack outside,” he said. “I reached in and pulled out a book called Music in Terezin. It was like being struck by lightning.”

"This is my personal mission," said Sidlin, who is on the conducting faculty of the School of Music at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and former dean of the school.

Located in what is now the Czech Republic, Terezin (also known as Theresienstadt) was presented by the Nazis as a model Jewish settlement. In fact about 60,000 residents died from starvation and illness and another 88,000 were deported to Auschwitz and other extermination camps.

Many well-educated people including a number of prominent artists were sent to Terezin where they organized orchestras, chamber and jazz ensembles, theater groups and art classes. One was conductor Rafael Schächter, who formed a 200-member strong chorus. With a single smuggled score of Verdi’s Requiem, committed to memory by the prisoners, the chorus performed the famous oratorio 16 times, including once before SS officials and a Red Cross delegation.

Schächter told the choir, “We will sing to the Nazis what we cannot say to them.” A few weeks after the final performance, he died in transit to Auschwitz.

Defiant Requiem has had a profound impact on those who have heard and seen it since it was first staged in 2002.

“The Requiem itself is almost unbearably powerful on its own -  a searing tone poem about the end of the world, operatic in scope and run through with celestial melodies and cascades of fire and brimstone,” wrote Stephen Brooks in The Washington Post. “But Sidlin's setting of the music, incorporating film of the camp, interviews with survivors, and actors describing the dramatic background, was handled with both dignity and power, and pushed the requiem to even more harrowing depths and exalting heights...”

Defiant Requiem is part of A Week of Remembrance: A Celebration of Jewish Culture, April 15-21 in partnership with the Opera-tunity Foundation and the USC School of Music.

Season tickets for the 2012 – 2013 USC Symphony Orchestra season will be available before and after the concert.

Individual tickets $25; $20 for seniors and USC faculty and staff; $8 for students. All performances take place at the Koger Center for the Arts, Assembly and Greene streets, Columbia. For more information and to purchase tickets call (803) 251-2222 or go to http://www.capitoltickets.com