After performing at Logan High School earlier this year, the Symphony Orchestra is ready to make its Spring Semester debut in Athens.
On Thursday, the ensemble will have its first Spring Semester concert in Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium. Continuing the annual tradition, the performance will feature the winners of the 2013 Student Soloist Competition.
Though it’s his first time winning with a partner, David Crider, a second-year graduate studying percussion performance, has won the concerto competition for the past two years in a row. This year, he and Natalie Klco, a sophomore studying music and physics in the Honors Tutorial College, will perform “Concerto for Vibraphone, Marimba and Orchestra” by Anders Koppel.
“It’s definitely an honor to get to be a soloist with the orchestra,” Crider said. “It was a goal I set out long in advance to do. To have achieved it is great.”
The concert will not only feature student performers but also renowned piccolo player and flutist Jan Gippo, previously of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
“It’s great to be able to have musicians of international caliber come in,” said Steven Huang, associate professor and director of orchestral activities and conductor of the Symphony Orchestra. “I’m very excited. … It’s wonderful to work with students and professionals.”
When choosing music for each concert, Brandon Fullenkamp, a second-year graduate studying orchestra conducting and graduate student conductor for the Symphony Orchestra, said there are two requirements to fulfill.
“Huang tries to get pieces that are appealing to the audience as far as popularity goes and then also educational pieces for the (orchestra members) that will teach them about their instruments,” he said. “There is a delicate balance between teaching the student and maintaining an audience.”
Lauretta Werner, a junior studying music performance who has played violin in the orchestra for the past three years, said the composition choices are always exciting.
“We perform a large repertoire of various genres and composers,” she said. “We work on a piece throughout the semester and it is exciting to expand our ideas throughout rehearsals and then gain an end result at the concert.”
If You Go:
What: Symphony Orchestra Concert
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday
Where: Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium
Admission: Free
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