Young Artists Competition

Andrews University Symphony Orchestra’s “Young Artist Concert”

Pre Concert Talk begins at 8:00 pm.

Featuring AU music students Stephanie Guimaraes (violin), Jade McClellan (violin), Jeremy Myung (violin), Simon Luke Brown (violin), Emily Jurek (piano), Katharina Burghardt (soprano), and Edgar Luna Torres (conductor)

The Andrews University Symphony Orchestra is pleased to continue its annual Young Artist Concert, showcasing students that have been selected as winners of the Department of Music’s Young Artist Competition.

The Young Artist Competition was a culmination for students of selecting then practicing their solos for multiple months, then performing them for music faculty after the students had committed the music to memory. Unsurprisingly, many talented and deserving students auditioned and it was a difficult process to select only six students to perform their solos with the Symphony Orchestra this month.

Katharina Burghardt will open the concert with a dramatic recitative and aria from Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, singing the role of Donna Elvira. Katharina is completing an undergraduate degree specializing in voice and music education, and hails from New York state. Following Katharina will be a wealth of violin solos, representing a variety of styles, colors, and speeds. The first movement of Camille Saint-Saëns’ powerful Violin Concerto No.3 will be performed by Jade McClellan, an undergraduate violin student from Georgia. Then Simon Luke Brown, a freshman violinist from Oklahoma, will perform the first movement of Sergei Prokofiev’s adventurous Violin Concerto No.2. That will be followed by the first movement of Felix Mendelssohn’s gorgeous Violin Concerto, performed by Stephanie Guimaraes, a graduate student from Brazil. Closing out the first half of the concert will be Jeremy Myung, an undergraduate violinist from California, performing the breathtaking Finale from Peter Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.

Following intermission, undergraduate pianist Emily Jurek will perform the first movement of Mozart’s divine Piano Concerto No.20. After Emily’s performance, all members of the Andrews University Symphony Orchestra will join forces to perform Johannes Brahms’ celebrative Academic Festival Overture under the baton of Edgar Luna Torres, a graduate student in orchestral conducting from Mexico. Brahms composed his overture in 1880 as a musical offering for the University of Breslau (now WrocÅ‚aw, Poland), which had decided to award Brahms an honorary doctorate degree in philosophy.

Program

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Don Giovanni - Donna Elvira’s Recitativo & Aria from Act 2
(featuring Katharina Burghardt, soprano)

Camille Saint-Saëns - Violin Concerto No.3 - I
(featuring Jade McClellan, violin)

Sergei Prokofiev - Violin Concerto No.2 - I
(featuring Simon Luke Brown, violin)

Felix Mendelssohn - Violin Concerto - I
(featuring Stephanie Guimaraes, violin)

Peter Tchaikovsky - Violin Concerto - III
(featuring Jeremy Myung, violin)

Intermission

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Piano Concerto No.20 - I
(featuring Emily Jurek, piano)

Johannes Brahms - Academic Festival Overture
(featuring Edgar Luna Torres, conductor)