KSO Concert Features Manno, Tompkins
The Keweenaw Symphony Orchestra
presents "Season of Joy: Music of Mozart, Beethoven, Ives, and Nathan
Barber" on Saturday, April 27, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, April 28, at
3 p.m. in the Rozsa Center. Soloists Rebecca Tompkins and John Manno will
play Mozart's Concerto in C Major for Flute and Harp, K. 299. Guest conductor
Jon Ceander Mitchell of the University of Massachusetts-Boston joins Jeffrey
Bell-Hanson on the podium for two related pieces, Charles Ives' "The
Unanswered Question" and the world premiere of Nathan Barber's "A
Reply (not an answer)." Mitchell will also direct the orchestra in
Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A Major.
Bell-Hanson, the KSO's music
director, says this program is notable for the spring-like energy and
enthusiasm its composers display in quite diverse pieces. He notes that
Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, for example, is an audience favorite because
of its mostly light-hearted nature and its barely restrained energy. "The
final movement is simply one of the greatest joyrides in the orchestral
literature," Bell-Hanson says, "so hang on tight!" Rebecca Tompkins will graduate
in May from the University of West Virginia with a degree in flute performance.
She spent her high school years in Houghton, playing piccolo and flute
with the Keweenaw Symphony Orchestra. In college, she has been a member
of several university ensembles, as well as the Opus Four Flute Quartet,
which performed for the Pine Mountain Music Festival in May 2000. The
quartet gave a number of concerts in New York and throughout West Virginia
and was featured at the 1999 Mid-Atlantic Flute Fair. She has performed
as soloist, maintains a teaching studio and serves as middle school flute
instructor in Waynesburg, Pa.
John Manno received his bachelor's
degree in harp performance from the Eastman School of Music and did graduate
work at Northwestern University. He has played with several regional orchestras,
as well as at at the Aspen Music Festival, the Heidelberg Schlosspiel
in Germany, and the Pine Mountain Music Festival. Since moving to Hancock
four years ago, he has performed as soloist and chamber musician throughout
the region. Barber, a native of the Grand
Rapids area, has had his work performed by ensembles from the Grand Rapids
Symphony, Western Michigan University, and Pine Mountain Music Festival,
among others. In addition to composing electronic, chamber, vocal and
orchestral music, he is operations manager of the Pine Mountain Music
Festival.
Mitchell is associate professor
and chair of the music department at the University of Massachusetts-Boston,
where he conducts the Chamber Orchestra, heads the music teacher certification
program and teaches conducting and orchestration. He has previously held
faculty positions at the University of Georgia, Carnegie Mellon University
and Hanover College (Indiana), and served as conductor and music director
of the North Pittsburgh Civic Symphony.
Tickets for this concert are
available from Rozsa Center Ticketing Services, 487-3200, the SDC Central
Ticket Office, Memorial Union, Calumet Theatre and on the web at www.tickets.mtu.edu
for $14 general, $5 students ($1 more at the door).
Mozart enjoyed writing for the flute, composing three concertos for flute
and orchestra and a quartet for flute and strings in addition to the duo-concerto
for flute and harp which Tompkins and Manno will present.
Bell-Hanson programmed Ives' "The Unanswered Question," which
he describes as "a classic piece of music wit," a year ago,
and only later discovered that Nathan Barber, a composer living in Houghton,
had written "A Reply (not the answer)" dedicated to "the
inimitable Mr. Ives." Both pieces require two conductors, and Bell-Hanson
has arranged for Mitchell to come to Houghton to assist with the Ives
work. The chance to premiere Barber's piece was irresistible.
