America the Beautiful is the theme for the Sunriver Music Festival’s 38th Season. The festival concerts run from August 7–19, with two concerts in Bend and five concerts in Sunriver.
The Sunriver Music Festival’s Artistic Director and Conductor George Hanson will lead the world class Festival Orchestra in four classical concerts, a Pops concert and a Family Concert. The 38th season includes a solo piano concert plus free orchestra rehearsals, a piano master class and the annual Festival Faire dinner and auction fundraiser.
Maestro George Hanson selected the America the Beautiful theme with the sub-theme “something old, something new, something red, white and blue.”
“Each of the seven summer festival concerts include classical favorites from Schumann, Beethoven, Haydn and Mendelssohn plus a nice assortment of music from more contemporary composers, such as Copland and Bernstein,” explains Maestro Hanson.“We are also including two new world premiers by composers Heather Schmidt and C.F. Kip Winger.”
Hanson adds, “The patriotic theme will run throughout the entire concert series and include well loved music that expresses the composers’ love for their homelands. We’ve selected music from Austria, Germany, Italy, the U.K., Czech Republic and the U.S.”
Sean Chen, the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition Crystal Medalist, is back by popular demand. The first American to place as a finalist since 1997, Chen won fans with his, “exceptional ability to connect with an audience combined with an easy virtuosity,” (Huffington Post). In 2013, Chen won the American Pianists Association’s Christel DeHaan Classical Fellowship, one of the most lucrative and significant prizes available to an American pianist.
This year, Chen won a $100,000 award, one of five 2015 grants from the Leonore Annenberg Fellowship Fund for the Performing and Visual Arts.
Chen will perform a solo concert on Monday, August 17, the Mendelssohn Piano Concerto no.1 with the Festival Orchestra on Wednesday, August 19 and will instruct a Piano Master Class on Tuesday, August 18.
The Pops Concert on Friday, August 7 at Summit High School will feature the Festival Orchestra’s performance of Grofé’s Grand Canyon Suite while experiencing hundreds of brilliant photographs of the Grand Canyon projected onto a 440-square-foot, three-panel, panoramic screen suspended above the orchestra.
This creative synthesis of music and imagery provides a compelling new symphonic experience. Featured is the Central Oregon Mastersingers with the Festival Orchestra performing Aaron Copland’s The Promise of Living plus America the Beautiful and the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
Cellist Amit Peled will be the featured soloist of Concert II on Wednesday, August 12 in the Great Hall performing the Haydn Cello Concerto in C major with the Festival Orchestra. From the United States to Europe to the Middle East and Asia, Israeli cellist Peled is a musician of profound artistry and charismatic stage presence.
This year is a celebration of the Festival’s Young Artists Scholarship program’s 20th Anniversary. As part of the celebration festivities, Maestro Hanson has invited eight time Young Artists Scholarship award winner Kyle Ruggles to perform as the flute soloist with the Festival Orchestra during the Family Concert and the Tower Theatre Concert. Kyle is a recent graduate from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Violinist John Fawcett will perform as a featured soloist in the Family Concert. Fawcett is a three time Sunriver Music Festival Young Artists Scholarship recipient and won the Central Oregon Symphony’s Young Artist Competition three times, enabling him to solo with the Central Oregon Symphony in 2010, 2012 and 2013.
The popular Family Concert is returning this year on Monday, August 10 at the Sunriver Resort Great Hall.
Concert III at the Tower Theatre on Saturday, August 15 will feature flutist Kyle Ruggles performing John Rutter’s Suite Antique and the talented Central Oregon Mastersingers performing the music of Bernstein and Copland with the Sunriver Music Festival Orchestra.
Sunriver Music Festival Ticket Office
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