Music at Penn’s Woods Orchestral and Chamber Music Festival Returns This Summer
April 22, 2008
Music at Penn’s Woods orchestral and chamber music festival is “Bach” on the Penn State University Park campus beginning in June 2008. The Penn State School of Music started the event more than 20 years ago as a chamber music festival, and it rapidly developed into a full orchestral program attracting musicians from across the country. This year the festival will take place over three consecutive weekends beginning June 14 and will include chamber music performed by the Pennsylvania Wind Quartet, Lyon Family String Ensemble, Armstrong Duo, Allegria Ensemble and others, plus performances by the Festival Orchestra.
All concerts will be held in Esber Recital Hall, Music Building I. The chamber ensembles will perform on June 14 at 7:30 p.m. and June 15 at 3 p.m. The Festival Orchestra, directed by Maestro Gerardo Edelstein, will perform on June 21 and 28 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets go on sale April 21 at Eisenhower Ticket Center (814-863-0255 or 1-800-ARTS-TIX) or online at www.cpa.psu.edu. Chamber music concerts are $15/adult, $8/student; Festival Orchestra concerts are $25/adult, $15/student; and a season package including all four concerts is $65/adult, $38/student.
According to Sue Haug, director of the School of Music, classical music lovers in the community urged the school to reestablish the festival. “This is a true community-university partnership, and we are grateful to all who have shown their support through their financial contributions, including Dotty and Paul Rigby, who are sponsoring the Festival Orchestra concert on June 21, and—soon—to all our friends who buy tickets.”
Edelstein, associate professor in the School of Music, says he is looking forward to working with the talented musicians who will make up the Festival Orchestra. “I am very excited to be part again of this wonderful festival and to have the chance to work with an amazing group of musicians that includes our own faculty, the finest community players, and former and current School of Music graduate students.”
Keeping with the theme, “We are Bach,” each program will feature a work by J. S. Bach. On June 21, the orchestra will perform J. S. Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 2, Variaciones Concertantes (Eleanor Armstrong, flute soloist) by Alberto Ginastera, and Felix Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony No. 4. The concert on June 28 will feature J. S. Bach/Stokowski’s Air from Suite No. 3 for Strings, Violin Concerto No. 2 (Max Zorin, violin soloist) by Sergei Prokofiev, and the “Eroica” Symphony No. 3 by Ludwig van Beethoven. James Lyon and Max Zorin, Penn State violin faculty members, will be sharing the concertmaster duties.
Contact: Russell Bloom, 863-1118, rlb16@psu.edu