WOODSTOCK CHAMBER ORCHESTRA ANNOUNCES ITS 2001-2002 CONCERT SERIES AT BARD COLLEGE Programs feature world premiere works by Colin Stack, Gerald Cohen, and Peter Schickele; featured artists include tuba soloist Matt Ingman, cellist Ashley Bathgate, violin
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.-The Woodstock Chamber Orchestra (WCO), under the direction of Luis Garcia-Renart, announces its 2001-2002 concert series at Bard College. The WCO will give four concerts at Bard on Wednesdays-October 3, November 7, March 13, and May 8. The programs, presented by The Bard Center, begin at 8:00 p.m. in Olin Hall. Admission to the concerts is $12 for adults, $6 for non-Bard students, and free for children 12 and under and Bard students, staff, and faculty.
"The WCO continues to feature local talent, many of them Bard graduates and faculty members, both as composers and soloists," explains Garcia-Renart. "This orchestra exists because of its dedicated and enthusiastic members, who have created a vehicle for their performance. The repertoire is chosen accordingly."
Colin Stack's "Public Alley 809" will have its world premiere performance during the Wednesday, October 3, concert at Bard. Stack, a Red Hook native, is a senior at New England Conservatory of Music. He attended Bard College while a student at Red Hook High School through the BRIDGE program, and was in Luis Garcia-Renart's Fundamentals of Music and performance classes. In addition, Matt Ingman is the featured artist in Ralph Vaughan Williams's "Concerto for Tuba," and there will be a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67. (This concert will also be performed on Saturday, September 9, at Holy Cross Church in Kingston, and on Sunday, September 30, at the Reformed Church of Saugerties.)
Performances of Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 56 ("Scottish") and Juan Crisostomo de Arriaga's "Overture to Los Esclavos Felices" and his Symphony No. 1 in D will be featured during the WCO concert at Bard on Wednesday, November 7. De Arriaga was a gifted composer who died a few days short of his 20th birthday. (This concert will also be performed on Saturday, November 3, at Holy Cross Church in Kingston, and on Sunday, November 4, at Bearsville Theater in Woodstock.)
The concert on Wednesday, March 13, at Bard will feature the performance of a world premiere of a new work by Gerald Cohen, who is a composer and cantor from Westchester County. Ashley Bathgate, a16-year-old from Saratoga Springs, is the featured artist in the performance of Schumann's Concerto in A Minor for Cello. Concluding the program is Mozart's "Vespers Solennes de Confessore" (K. 339) with Ars Choralis. (This concert will also be performed on Saturday, March 9, at Holy Cross Church in Kingston, and on Sunday, March 10, at the Reformed Church of Saugerties.)
The final concert of the 2001-2002 WCO series at Bard is on Wednesday, May 8. This program will feature the world premiere of a work by acclaimed composer and Woodstock resident Peter Schickele. (His son, Matthew Schickele, a Bard graduate, also had an orchestral piece premiered by the WCO.) Also to be performed are Saint-Saen's "Havanaise," Op. 83, and his "Introduction and Rondo Capricioso," with featured artist Betty Jean Hagen (WCO concertmaster); and Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 36. (This concert will also be performed on Saturday, May 4, at Holy Cross Church in Kingston, and on Sunday, May 5, at Bearsville Theater in Woodstock.)
WCO artistic director Luis Garcia-Renart's "supreme gift as conductor is his ability to inspire and elicit depth of expression from all his musicians, whatever level of technical ability," writes music critic Kitty Montgomery in the Daily Freeman. This is his 11th year as artistic director of the WCO. Garcia-Renart is a professor of music at Bard College and also serves on the faculties of Vassar College, the Piatigorsky seminars at the University of Southern California, and Yale University's summer programs in chamber music. He was born in Barcelona, Spain, and studied at the Music School of the National University and the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico. From 1951 until 1956, his cello studies were supervised by Pablo Casals. He also studied directly with Casals in France and in Puerto Rico until 1960, when he won a scholarship to study at the Conservatory of Moscow with Rostropovich and Khachaturian. Garcia-Renart attended the conservatories of Bern and Basel, Switzerland, and Trossingen, Germany, where he was a pupil of Sándor Veress and Sándor Vegh. Prizes awarded Garcia-Renart include the Casals International Contests in Paris in 1956, Xalpa in 1959, and Israel in 1961. He also received the Harriet Cohen Cello Prize in London in 1959. In addition to conducting, Garcia-Renart performs frequently as a soloist in recitals and chamber concerts nationally and abroad.
The concert is made possible in part with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and through the generosity of the Homeland Foundation and the Leon Levy Foundation at Bard College. For further information or to order tickets, call 845-246-7045.
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(9.10.01)