Student musicians in the spotlight at next USC Symphony Orchestra concert

See tomorrow’s musical leaders in action as outstanding students of the University of South Carolina School of Music shine in the next USC Symphony Orchestra concert. The first half of the March 13 concert showcases winners of the orchestra’s concerto-aria competition and student conductors performing works spanning four centuries by Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms and Ibert.

After intermission orchestra music director Donald Portnoy will conduct Bizet’s Symphony in C.

Students in the spotlight are from around the U.S. as well as South America and Asia.

Nové Deypalan

The concert opens with “Overture to Egmont” written by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1810. Conducting will be Nove Deypalan who in February conducted the world premiere of “Dream of a Hundred Flowers” by Fang Man at Carnegie Hall. Deypalan, a native of the Philippines, studied at the University of the Philippines College of Music and was composer and conductor at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.  A doctoral student in conducting, Deypalan holds a master’s degree from the University of Southern California.

The work was a commission for a production of Goethe’s tragedy “Egmont.” The composer waived his fee “merely for love of the poet.”

Blair Francis

Paula Anne Ulicsni will conduct the third movement of the Concerto for Flute and Orchestra by Jacques Ibert, with soloist Blair Francis. Francis, principal flutist of the orchestra, is a senior performance major and the 2011 Presser Scholar.  She has been an award winner in the Florida Flute Association College Young Artist Competition, the South Carolina Flute Society’s Young Artist Competition and the National Flute Association Masterclass Performers Competition.

Paula Anne Ulicsni

Ulicsni is pursuing a master’s degree in instrumental conducting. She has been assistant conductor of Opera at USC, participated in the 2010 and 2011 Conductors Institute of South Carolina and conducted for in the 2010 concerto-aria Competition concert. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota Duluth.

The third movement of the 1934 concerto immediately became a test piece at the Paris Conservatory, in part due to its difficulty; for the same reason 20 years passed before it became a frequent concert choice.

Robert Brown conducts Franz Joseph Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major, first movement, with soloist Oswaldo Zapata.

Oswaldo Zapata

Zapata is from Colombia, South America, where he earned a music performance degree from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. In 2000 he began studying in his native country with James Ackley, who is now on the School of Music faculty, and in 2008 he came to USC to continue working with Ackley. Zapata is pursuing a master’s degree in music performance.

Robert Brown

Brown, a master’s degree student in orchestral conducting, received a bachelor’s degree from Moravian College in Pennsylvania where he performed in various ensembles as a saxophonist, served as student director for the Moravian College BIG Band and organized and conducted a full performance of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Soldier’s Tale.”

The Trumpet Concerto, written in 1796, is the one of the first important works written for the recently-invented keyed trumpet.

Yi Yang

Yi Yang will lead the orchestra and Ying-Li Pan will be soloist for the first movement of the Violin Concerto in D Major by Johannes Brahms. Yi Yang studied conducting at the Central Conservatory of Music in China, and has conducted at the National Centre for the Performing Arts and the Central Conservatory. Yi Yang won First Prize at the Conducting Competition and Best Conductor Prize at the Beijing International Band Festival and the China High-Class Amateur Band Festival.

Ying-Li Pan

A native of Taiwan, Ying-Li Pan is pursuing her master’s degree in performance. She holds the positions of concertmaster with the USC Chamber Orchestra and associate concertmaster with the Symphony Orchestra. A graduate of National Taiwan Normal University, she toured with the Normal University Symphony Orchestra and Asia Youth Orchestra throughout Asia, Australia and the U.S.

The 1878 work is the only violin concerto by the composer. He wrote the work for his lifelong friend violinist Joseph Joachim.

Donald Portnoy

Maestro Portnoy will take the podium to conduct Georges Bizet’s Symphony in C. Bizet wrote the symphony, his only one, when he was 17. The Symphony in C was not discovered until decades after the composer’s death in 1875, with its first performance given in 1935.

The USC Symphony Orchestra, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 13. Koger Center for the Arts. Tickets are $25; $20 for USC faculty and staff and seniors, $8 for students. Call (803) 251-2222 or go to capitoltickets.com

(To arrange interviews with any of the participants, please contact the USC Symphony Orchestra at 803-777-7500.)

Join the USC Symphony for a night of romance

Immerse yourself completely in the most romantic day of the year with some of the most romantic music ever created at a concert by the University of South Symphony Orchestra. “Amore,” taking place Feb. 14, will fill the Koger Center for the Arts with songs of love from the operas “Carmen” and “La Boheme,” the musicals “My Fair Lady” and “Phantom of the Opera” and a concert version of “Porgy and Bess.” The concert will feature four guest soloists and the Benedict College Concert Choir.

“This concert will bring the best of songs from opera and Broadway together,” said Donald Portnoy, music director of the orchestra. “This is a very special day for everyone and this is a way to explore themes of love in music.”

The concert opens with the beloved “Carmen Suite No. 1” by George Bizet. The opera about the beautiful gypsy girl was roundly denounced when it premiered in 1875 and the composer died a few months later, never being able to experience the huge success the opera would become.

Singers Diana Amos and Daniel Cole join the orchestra for a medley from “My Fair Lady,” including “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “On the Street Where You Live” and “Wouldn't It Be Loverly?”

Amos, who sang with the orchestra last fall in “The Telephone,” has long experience on the European opera stage with major roles in “The Magic Flute,” “The Tales of Hoffman”  and “Ariadne auf Naxos.” A doctoral candidate in vocal performance at USC, she has appeared in several Opera at USC productions and is a faculty member at Columbia College.

Cole has performed at theaters from Lisbon to Taiwan and at many regional companies including Opera Theatre of St. Louis and Opera Boston. He provided the voice of God on the 2010 recording of Dominick Argento’s “Jonah and the Whale” by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Cole holds a doctorate of music degree in choral conducting from Indiana University. While a student there he directed, sang and recorded with the Concord Ensemble with which he reunited in 2007 to perform with Sting in Los Angeles. Cole is the Director of Music at First Presbyterian Church in Columbia.

Amos will also sing “Musetta’s Waltz” from “La Boheme” by Giacomo Puccini, while Cole will sing the serenade from “Faust” by Charles Gounod. The first half of the concert closes with the orchestra performing music from the smash hit “Phantom of the Opera.”

“Porgy and Bess” broke down the walls between opera and musical theater when it appeared 1935. George Gershwin collaborated with Charleston writer Dubose Heyward to adapt Heyward’s novel “Porgy” which was set among the African American community of Charleston. This concert version will include the opera’s popular songs  “My Man's Gone Now," “I Got Plenty of Nothing’,” “It Ain't Necessarily So,” and of course “Summertime.”

“Porgy and Bess” features soloists Lori Celeste Hicks and Tommy Watson along with the Benedict College Concert Choir, directed by Linda Kershaw, chair of the Benedict department of fine arts.

Hicks performed the role of Bess at Opera Theater of Pittsburgh in 2010. She was recently featured with the Brevard Philharmonic in North Carolina and has appeared in “Don Giovanni,” “La Boheme,” “Così fan tutte” and “Die Fledermaus” and performed Verdi’s “Requiem,” Saint-Saëns’ “Oratorio de Noël” and Bach’s “Magnificat.” She made her Carnegie Hall debut in the fall. Hicks is a music faculty member at Claflin University in Orangeburg.

Watson made his operatic debut in Cortona, Italy and has appeared in Nigeria, Ghana, Spain, and Canada and has performed a large portion of the standard requiem, oratorio and cantata repertoire. A native of Leesville, S.C., he holds a doctorate in music from USC and teaches at Anderson University.

The 7:30 p.m. concert is at the Koger Center for the Arts. Tickets are $25; $20 for USC faculty and staff and seniors, $8 for students. Call  (803) 251-2222 or go to capitoltickets.com

November concert brings music, movies and dance to stage

Music, dance and the movies come together along with some very special guests for the next University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra concert. Acclaimed violinist Michael Ludwig is the soloist for “The Red Violin” concerto by John Corigliano and dancers from the Columbia Classical Ballet will join the orchestra as it performs the second act of “The Nutcracker.” The concert is Tuesday, Nov. 15 at 7:30 p.m. at the Koger Center for the Arts.

Just a few months ago Michael Ludwig gave the Russian premiere “The Red Violin” with the St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra and in October performed it with the National Philharmonic. “The Red Violin” concerto grew out of Corigliano’s Academy Award-winning soundtrack for the 1998 film of the same name that spans three centuries and five countries as it tells the story of a mysterious violin and its many owners. Corigliano completed the four-movement concerto in 2003.

Ludwig has long experience performing “The Red Violin” and recorded it in 2009 with the Buffalo Philharmonic conducted by music director JoAnn Falletta for the Naxos label. His performance in St. Petersburg was made at the request of Corigliano who has called Ludwig “an extraordinary artist who merges world-class technique with a world-class interpretive mind.”

Corigliano is one of the best-known contemporary composers whose varied styles have garnered many honors. The composer was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his Second Symphony in 2001, won a 2000 Grammy Award for “Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan” for soprano and orchestra, was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera to write “The Ghost of Versailles” in 1991, and has scored several movies including “Altered States” and “Revolution.”

This will be the second time Ludwig, concertmaster of the Buffalo Philharmonic, has performed with the USC Symphony Orchestra.

“He’s a first-class performer and a heck of a nice guy,” said Dr. Donald Portnoy, music director. “There’s warmth in his playing and real insight into the music he is performing. There is always a musical idea he is trying to get across to the audience and he does that.”

Corigliano will be paired with another composer who could write music for many purposes – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Most people know his music through “The Nutcracker” and although thousands of people attend “The Nutcracker” ballet each year, they rarely get a chance to hear the music played live. The USC Symphony will be in full force for this work with nearly 70 players on stage.

“We thought it would be nice for people to be able to hear it as Tchaikovsky intended,” said Portnoy.

For “The Nutcracker” the orchestra will be joined by Columbia Classical Ballet dancers performing excerpts from 1892 ballet by choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. The ballet is set at Christmas time during a magical night. In the second act the Nutcracker, who has been transformed into a prince, and the girl Clara journey to the Kingdom of Sweets where sugarplum fairies dance. During the 1960s “The Nutcracker” became a holiday dance tradition in the United States.

The second act includes the Spanish, Arabian, Chinese and Russians dances, as well as the “Waltz of the Flowers,” the “Pas de Deux” and “Sugar-Plum Fairy Dance,” the last of which uses the celesta, a keyboard/percussion instrument invented in 1886. The clear bell-like tone of the celesta is immediately recognizable. Although most strongly associated with the Sugar Plum dance, many people also know its sound through the “Hedwig Theme” from the “Harry Potter” movies.

Don’t miss this concert of musical masterpieces from the 19^th and 21^st centuries.

Tickets are $25 for the general public, $20 for USC faculty and staff and seniors; and $8 for students. To purchase tickets go to capitoltickets.com or call (803) 251-2222.  

USC Symphony soloist lives in Columbia but he’s performed around the globe

Phillip Bush, who will perform with the USC Symphony Orchestra Oct. 18, is considered a musician’s musician.

"He's such a monster player, but wears it so lightly," said Ken May, a musician and director of the S.C. Arts Commission. "He just comes across as a real normal guy, but with amazing chops and an amazing resume."

Bush and his wife Lynn Kompass, an associate professor at the USC School of Music, and their son Spencer live in the Old Shandon neighborhood of Columbia. He will perform Beethoven’s Concerto No. 4 at the Oct. 18 USC Symphony concert.

The pianist spent his early years in New Jersey where his father worked for a book publisher and played jazz and his mother, a native of Germany, usually had Mozart and Schumann on the record player. Young Phillip listened and memorized and started music classes at 5. In 1967, the family moved to Charlotte.

When he was 10, Bush heard a concert that would lead to his love of 20^th century music. The New York Philharmonic came to town and played Bela Bartok's 1936 "Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste." That sent him scurrying for more music by Bartok and other early 20th-century composers.

After high school he headed to the Peabody Institute Conservatory where he studied with Leon Fleisher, an acclaimed pianist. He didn't consider himself a standout student and was reluctant to take on and fully appreciate the older music. Warming up to the older composers took time. Bach and Beethoven, especially the dark edginess of the latter, weren't too difficult. Early classical composers -- Mozart and Haydn -- were another matter.

"It took me a while to see the sense of invention in the works, and now they're some of my favorites," he said.

Upon graduating Peabody, Bush headed to the Banff Centre in Canada for post-graduate studies. In the nonstructured environment, Bush developed his discipline. That's also where he met composer Steve Reich, who was a visiting artist.

"I cajoled the school into letting me set up a performance of Reich's 'Six Pianos' since we had plenty of pianos there," Bush said. Reich came and heard it, and Bush followed him around all week "like a groupie." After Banff, he moved to New York, where Reich hired him as a rehearsal player. A few years later, he was part of the group. He also worked with dancer/choreographer/composer Laura Dean and through her met other new music composers and performers, including Philip Glass. He performed with both the Reich and Glass ensembles for most of the next 20 years.

During his years in New York, Bush frequently performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Bargemusic. He has played at festivals from Cape Cod to Scotland and for eight years was in the piano group Typhoon, which topped the classical music charts in Japan for several years. During the mid-1990s, he started performing with Present Music, based in Milwaukee, and in 2000 began teaching at the University of Michigan School of Music. At Michigan, he met Kompass, who was finishing her doctorate. She got a job at the USC School of Music and Bush settled here shortly after the two married about four years ago.

"This is a pleasant city to live in, and I've gotten to know a lot of people in the creative community," he said.

He’s been very active in Columbia playing music from many eras in a wide range of settings: Bach and Beethoven at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Charles Ives, Philip Glass, Olivier Messiaen and John Zorn at the USC Southern Exposure series, and Glass and Bach at The White Mule nightclub. Each summer he goes to Vermont where he is music director of The Chamber Music Conference and Composers' Forum of the East. His most recent recording “The Complete Sonatas for Violin and Piano” by Beethoven was released earlier this year.

California violist Helen Callus has performed with Bush several times including for the NPR program “St. Paul Sunday.”

"He loves what he does, and he also has that balance of being a nice person and sensitive," said "His range is limitless. I know from playing with him that he can play anything beautifully."

Two singers lauded in The Times sing out again in Menotto’s comic opera “The Telephone”

Bass-baritone Jacob Will and soprano Diana Amos performed Gian Carlo Menotti’s comic opera “The Telephone” at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival last spring and got a nice review in the The New York Times.

“Diana Amos and Jacob Will gave the piece a nice workout. Ms. Amos was especially impressive in passages that wove laughter or other nonverbal expression into the musical line,” said The Times.

The opera was part of an all-Menotti concert by the Piccolo Spoleto Festival Orchestra conducted by USC Symphony Orchestra music director Donald Portnoy. Now the two singers will again join Maestro Portnoy for a concert performance of the one-act opera, this time with the USC Symphony Orchestra. The opera is part of the Oct. 18 concert which also includes the “Capriccio Italien” by Tchaikovsky and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4.

Diana Amos is an instructor of voice at Columbia College and a graduate student in vocal performance at USC. She has had a long career in Europe, performing leading roles with more than thirty-five European companies including Queen of the Night in Mozart's “The Magic Flute” at the Berlin State Opera, Olympia in “The Tales of Hoffman” at the Semper Opera in Dresden and at the Cologne Opera, and Zerbinetta in “Ariadne auf Naxos” at the Staatsoper in Hannover, Germany.

Since arriving at USC Ms. Amos has sung the title role in “Miss Havisham's Wedding Night” and the Fairy Godmother in Massenet’s “Cendrillon” with Opera at USC. Amos received a Bachelor of Music degree in voice from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio and a vocal performance diploma from the Hochschule fuer Musik in Cologne, Germany.

An associate professor in the USC School of Music, Mr. Will has appeared with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Vladamir Ashkenazy and with the Cabrillo Festival under the baton of Dennis Russell Davies. He has sung the title role in “Le Nozze di Figoro” with the New York City Opera and performed with the Vancover Opera, the Bavarian State Opera and the San Francisco Opera. He has also appeared at the International Bach Festival of Schaffhausen, Switzerland and with the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra. He made his New York Philharmonic debut as soloist in the American Premiere of the Messa per Rossini, a performance televised live nationwide.

An experienced concert artist, Mr. Will has sung for many years with the Zürich Opera appearing in roles such as Raimondo in “Lucia di Lammermoor,” Mustafa in “L'Italiana in Algeri” and Colline in “La Boheme.”

The Hartsville, S.C., native studied at Furman University, USC and the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music.

When first performed in 1947, “The Telephone” was coupled with the darker Menotti opera “The Medium.” The two were so successful they were transferred to Broadway where they ran for 211 performances. In “The Telephone” Ben has come to Lucy’s apartment to propose, but every time he gets ready to pop the question she makes or takes a telephone call. He ends up phoning her with his proposal.

Acclaimed pianist Phillip Bush performs Beethoven with the USC Symphony Orchestra

When Phillip Bush settled in Columbia several years ago the city got a gift of regular concerts by the pianist. He’ll make his first appearance with the University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra Tuesday, Oct. 18 performing Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concert No. 4 in G major. This also marks his debut performing with an orchestra in South Carolina

The concert at the Koger Center will also have another guest - Italian conductor and composer Nino Lepore leading the orchestra in “Capriccio Italien” by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and the Beethoven. The orchestra honors the 100th anniversary of Gian Carlo Menotti’s birth with a concert version of his opera “The Telephone” which will be conducted by music director Donald Portnoy.

For many years Bush was a member of the Steve Reich and Philip Glass ensembles and has appeared as soloist with Osaka (Japan) Century Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony and Houston Symphony. Bush has performed at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and New York's Bargemusic, and with the Kronos Quartet, the Miami String Quartet, and members of the Emerson, Guarneri, and St. Lawrence quartets. From 1993 to 1998 he was founding director of MayMusic in Charlotte and is music director of The Chamber Music Conference and Composers' Forum of the East held each summer in Vermont. His most recent recording “The Complete Sonatas for Violin and Piano” by Beethoven was released earlier this year.

Since coming to Columbia in 2004, Bush has played music from many eras in a wide range of settings: the Bach and Beethoven at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Charles Ives, Philip Glass, Olivier Messiaen and John Zorn at the USC Southern Exposure series, and Glass and Bach at The White Mule nightclub. Not only is this the first time he has performed with the USC Symphony Orchestra - this is the first time he has performed with an orchestra in South Carolina.

The G major Concerto, written between 1804 and 1806, is considered the most gently-spoken and poetic of all Beethoven concertos.

“In a lot of ways it’s my favorite piano concerto,” Bush said. “It has a shimmering kind of beauty and is a pretty happy piece. It is revolutionary in its own way, not like some of the other more radical latter works, but it breaks with other concerto forms from that time.”

Bush became intimately familiar with the concerto while studying at Peabody Conservatory with Leon Fleisher who in 1959 recorded what is still considered the definitive version of the concerto. Bush has performed the concerto several times, the last time with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra in the 1980s.

The concerto is well-known for its unusual solo piano opening. Although only 15 seconds long, it has been approached in many ways and nearly analyzed to death.  

“It is such an unusual and special moment that everyone makes a big deal of it,” Bush said. “As I’ve gotten older I think of it as a simple statement.” Still, he said, “it is a very important statement and sort of cosmic.”

The public premiere of the concerto in 1808 was part of a famous concert in which Beethoven made his last appearance as soloist with an orchestra. The concerto was largely ignored during Beethoven’s lifetime, until the Felix Mendelssohn rescued it from obscurity in 1836.

The piano introduces the singing character of the work and the ensuing themes in the first movement also have a lyrical quality. Many of the harmonic episodes of the movement are also forecast in the opening bars. The slow movement (widely associated with the imagery of Orpheus taming the Furies) sets up a restless dialogue between soloist and orchestra. The opening of the third movement features a harmonic juxtaposition similar to that in the first: the rondo begins softly in the “wrong key.” The full ensemble states the rondo theme and several intervening episodes provide some of the most ebullient music in the concerto with trumpets and timpani reinforcing these passages. Near the end of the movement after the cadenza, the work seems begins to subside peacefully, then ends with a triumphant flourish.

Bush will give a pre-concert talk at 6:45 p.m. at the rehearsal hall of the Koger Center.

Gian Carlo Menotti, a native of Italy but considered an American composer, is known to many as founder of the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, and the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston. Before that he was a ground-breaking opera composer. “The Telephone,” a one-act comedy in English, was first performed in 1947 along with the composer’s tragic “The Medium” in New York. The two were so successful they were transferred to Broadway where they ran for 211 performances. In “The Telephone” Ben has come to Lucy’s apartment to propose, but every time he gets ready to pop the question she makes or takes a telephone call. He ends up phoning her with his proposal. The performance features baritone Jacob Will, an assistant professor at the USC School of Music, and soprano Diana Amos, a graduate student at the school who has had an extensive European career. In June the two performed “The Telephone” during an all-Menotti concert conducted by USC Symphony Orchestra music director Donald Portnoy at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston.

“Diana Amos and Jacob Will gave the piece a nice workout,” wrote The New York Times. “Ms. Amos was especially impressive in passages that wove laughter or other nonverbal expression into the musical line.”

Tchaikovsky was inspired to write the “Capriccio Italien” during an extended stay in Rome during carnival season when the music – including revile bugles from a nearby military barracks - filled the air. The work was premiered in 1880 in Moscow. Guest conductor Lepore has conducted orchestras from Mexico to Portugal to Poland and composed soundtracks for several films.

7:30 p.m. at the Koger Center for the Arts, Assembly and Greene streets, Columbia. Tickets $25; $20 for seniors and USC faculty and staff; $8 for students. For more information and to purchase tickets call (803) 251-2222 or go to http://www.capitoltickets.com