VIOLINIST ERICA KIESEWETTER AND PIANIST DIANE WALSH JOIN THE AMERICAN SYMPHONY CHAMBER ORCHESTRA FOR THE BARD-VASSAR CONCERTS ON MAY 4 AND 5 Concerts will feature works by Alban Berg, George Perle, and Mozart
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.-Guest artists violinist Erica Kiesewetter and pianist Diane Walsh join the American Symphony Chamber Orchestra (ASCO), conducted by Leon Botstein, for the final program of the 2000-2001 Bard-Vassar concert series. The concerts, presented by The Bard Center, will be held on Friday, May 4, at Olin Hall, Bard College, and on Saturday, May 5, at Skinner Hall, Vassar College. Preconcert talks begin at 7:00 p.m., concerts begin at 8:00 p.m.; tickets are $15. For further information about the ASCO Bard-Vassar concerts, call 845-758-7425.
The program includes Alban Berg's Chamber Concerto, op. 8, for piano, violin, with 13 instruments, with guest artists violinist Erica Kiesewetter and pianist Diane Walsh; George Perle's Sinfonietta I; and Mozart's Symphony no. 36 in C Major, K. 425, "Linz."
Erica Kiesewetter is a founding member of the Leonardo Trio and the Perspectives Ensemble as well as former first violinist of the Colorado Quartet. She is concertmaster of the Opera Orchestra of New York, Solisti New York Chamber Orchestra, Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, and the Stamford Symphony and has often appeared as soloist with these groups. Kiesewetter is also concertmaster of the Amercian Symphony Orchestra and has performed at the Bard Music Festival since its inception.
An "inventive, fiery interpreter . . . unafraid to take risks when the music's passions demand them," Allan Kozinn wrote in the New York Times about Diane Walsh. She won both the Munich International Piano Competition and the Salzburg International Mozart Competition and also received top prizes in the Concert Artists Guild Competition and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions. During the 2000-2001 season she performed with the Syracuse and Deleware Symphony Orchestras and the American Symphony Orchestra in Manhattan. Walsh is the new artistic director of the Skaneateles Festival, and her performance there last summer "dazzled the crowd," according to David Abrams of the Syracuse Post-Standard. She has performed concertos with the radio symphonies of Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Berlin, the San Francisco Symphony under the direction of Seiji Ozawa, the Indianapolis and St. Louis symphonies, and orchestras in Brazil, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Russia.
Walsh has given solo recitals in New York City at the 92nd Street Y, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Merkin Concert Hall; at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Orchestra Hall in Chicago, Wigmore Hall in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Philharmonic Hall in St. Petersburg (Leningrad), the Rudofinum in Prague, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and in other major cities in the United States, Canada, Venezuela, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands. Her recordings include Twentieth Century Piano Classics, Goddess of the Moon, and the Bartók Violin Sonatas No. 1 and 2 with pianist Eugene Drucker.
Leon Botstein is music director of the ASCO, coartistic director and conductor of the Bard Music Festival, music director of the American Symphony Orchestra, and president of Bard College. He is editor of The Musical Quarterly and has published several books, including The Compleat Brahms and Jefferson's Children: Education and the Promise of American Culture.
For further information about the ASCO Bard-Vassar concerts, call 845-758-7425.
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