Duneland.com > Calendar > February 2010 > Valparaiso University Symphony Orchestra

Valparaiso University Symphony Orchestra

Saturday, February 13, 2010 • 7:30 pm

Valparaiso University Chapel of the Resurrection

The Valparaiso University Symphony Orchestra will perform with winners of the annual Student Concerto Competition in the Chapel of the Resurrection on campus.

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During the concert, which begins at 7:30 p.m., the Orchestra will perform Gabrielle Fauré’s “Elegy for Cello and Orchestra,” a selection from Gaetano Donizetti’s “Lucia Di Lammermoor” opera, Artie Shaw’s “Concerto for Clarinet” and Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No. 5 in E minor.”

Selected by outside adjudicators as winners of the Department of Music’s annual Student Concerto Competition were cellist Cortney Sourwine, a senior music and psychology major from Crestwood, Ky.; tenor Michael Anderson, a senior music and electrical engineering major from Lake Forest, Ill.; and clarinetist Christopher Mueller, a senior music and chemistry major from Cedarburg, Wis. Sourwine will be a featured soloist in the performance of “Elegy,” Anderson in the aria “Fra poco a me recovero” from Donizetti’s opera and Mueller in Shaw’s concerto.

Tickets to the concert are $15 for adults and $10 for senior citizens and students. Tickets may be purchased by calling the Valpo Box Office at (219) 464-5162 or online at http://www.valpo.edu/vuca.

The Valparaiso University Symphony Orchestra is an auditioned ensemble conducted by Dr. Dennis Friesen-Carper, Reddel professor of music, and has toured across the country and internationally.

Dr. Friesen-Carper says that the concert will take the audience on an emotional journey from grief to joy through sound.

“The first two works, Fauré’s poignant ‘Elegy for Cello,’ and dramatic tenor Edgar’s heartbroken aria on the death of his beloved in Donizetti’s ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ are both excellent examples of the ability of classical music to distill the gravest and most difficult of human emotions and express them with power and ennobling beauty,” Dr. Friesen-Carper says. “To end the first half, the clarinet is featured in an exuberant, virtuosic display of swing-era pyrotechnics in a big-band-styled romp.”

Dr. Friesen-Carper joined Valpo’s music faculty in 1991, and has been a guest conductor and performer in more than 40 states, China, Canada, Europe, Korea and Japan. He has served as composer-in-residence for the Northwest Indiana Symphony and his works have been commissioned by numerous ensembles, colleges and churches, and performed by the Houston Symphony, Tucson Symphony and Zhejiang and Jiang Su Symphony Orchestras.

More information about Valpo’s Department of Music, including future concerts and recitals, is online at http://www.valpo.edu/music or by calling Valpo’s Center for the Arts at (219) 464-5162. The public also is invited to sign up for a monthly e-mail that will announce upcoming Valpo visual and performing arts news and events at http://www.valpo.edu/vuca/mailinglist.php.

Categories: Arts & Culture, Live Music

February Calendar