TICKETS ON SALE NOW FOR NOVEMBER 17 ORCHESTRA CONCERT IN SHEPHERDSTOWN

The Friends of Music will celebrate the tenth anniversary of their Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra with a concert in Shepherdstown on
Saturday, November 17. The concert will be held at Trinity Episcopal Church at 7:30 p.m.

Entitled “Nostalgia and Longing,” it will feature four works: “Salut d’amour,” by Edward Elgar; Mozart’s Overture to “Don Giovanni”; a guitar concerto entitled “Concierto de Arsanjuez,” by Joaquin Rodrigo; and Bizet’s Symphony in C.

To help celebrate the anniversary occasion, Dr. Mark McCoy, the former head of Shepherd University’s Music Department and the Orchestra’s founding music director, is returning to guest conduct the Mozart overture. Dr. McCoy is now the President of DePauw University in Indiana.

The Orchestra’s current music director, Jed Gaylin, will conduct the rest of the concert program. Gaylin said “We are delighted to bring Mark back in his capacity as conductor. The Friends of Music are extraordinarily grateful to him. It is no exaggeration to say without his vision, dedication, and artistry neither the Friends nor Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra would be here to enliven the region with stirring musical performance and education.”

Guitarist Max Zuckerman will be the featured artist for the Rodrigo concerto. Trained at the Yale University School of Music and the Peabody Institute, Zuckerman is currently professor of guitar at Fordham University in New York. He has performed throughout the U.S. and abroad.
Gaylin said the concert overall will offer “an effervescent program that will give listeners exquisite color and also high energy. From the soulful Rodrigo to the frolicsome Bizet, the program is irresistible.”

Admission to the concert will be free for Friends of Music members. The ticket price for others will be $30 per person ($27.50 before November 4). Tickets can be purchased on the Friends’ website at www.friendswv.org; or by mail (FOM, PO Box 220, Shepherdstown, WV 25443); or, if space is available, at the church the evening of the performance. Visa and Master Card will be accepted.
This year’s Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra Concerts are being supported by a grant from the WV Division of Culture and History and the National Endowment for the Arts, with approval from the WV Commission on the Arts.

Full information about the Friends, the Orchestra, and the concert season is available at www.friendswv.org.

FRIENDS OF MUSIC ANNOUNCE NEW CONCERT SEASON

The Friends of Music have announced the schedule for their 2018-2019 performance season.
The season will run from October 2018 through May 2019. It will include a total of five concerts: three by the Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra, one by a small ensemble, and an organ recital.
All of the concerts will be held in Shepherdstown’s historic Trinity Episcopal Church, which offers superb acoustics.
The first concert will be a small ensemble concert on Saturday, October 6 at 7:30 p.m. It will feature the Two Rivers String Quartet. The program will include Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 1 in F major and Borodin’s String Quartet No. 2.

The other concerts will be as follows:

• Saturday, November 17, 2018, 7:30 p.m. Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra. The program, entitled “Nostalgia and Longing,” will include works by Elgar, Mozart, Joaquin Rodrigo, and Bizet. Mark McCoy, the former head of Shepherd University’s Music Department and founder of the Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra, will guest conduct the Mozart work in this concert. Dr. McCoy is now the President of DePauw University in Indiana. Guitarist Max Zuckerman will be the featured artist for the Rodrigo work.

• Saturday, January 19, 2019 (snow date January 26), 7:30 p.m. Organ recital featuring organist Julie Vidrick Evans. She will perform a variety of works from the 17th through the 19th centuries, including works by Lubeck, Handel, Bach and Brahms

• Saturday, March 30, 2019, 7:30 p.m. Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra. The program, entitled “String Fling,” will feature the premiere of a new work by contemporary composer J. Kimo Williams, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 14 I n E-flat Major, and Mendelssohn’s Sinfonia No. 8 in D. Pianist Scott Beard will be the featured artist for the Mozart Concerto.

• Saturday, May 18, 2019, 7:30 p.m. Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra. The program, entitled “Nonsense and Sensibility,” will feature performances of Beethoven’s Septet in E-flat Major and William Walton’s “Façade,” which includes recitations of poetry by 20th Century English Poet Edith Sitwell.

Admission to all of the concerts will be free for Friends of Music members. The fee for annual memberships is $150 per person. Nonmembers will be able to purchase tickets for individual concerts; the price will be $30 per person for Orchestra concerts and $25 per person for the small-ensemble concert and organ recital.
Friends’ memberships and tickets can be purchased on the Friends’ website at www.friendswv.org or by mail (FOM, PO Box 220, Shepherdstown, WV 25443) or, if space is available, at the church the evening of the performance. Visa and Master Card will be accepted.
The Friends of Music is an independent, local non-profit organization that was founded in 1999 to support and promote musical excellence. It is governed by a board of directors made up of local-area citizens.
The Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra is the only professional chamber orchestra in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia and one of only three in the state. It was established by the Friends of Music in 2007 and has been sustained by the Friends since its inception. Jed Gaylin was named Music Director in 2012. He also serves as the Music Director of Baltimore’s Hopkins Symphony Orchestra and the Bay Atlantic Symphony in New Jersey, and Artist in Residence at New Jersey’s Stockton University.
This year’s Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra concerts are supported by a grant from the WV Division of Culture and History and the National Endowment for the Arts, with approval from the WV Commission on the Arts.

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FRIENDS OF MUSIC GIVE SCHOLARSHIPS TO THREE BERKELEY COUNTY STUDENTS

The Friends of Music have awarded $500 scholarships to three graduating seniors at Berkeley County high schools.
The scholarships were presented during the intermission of a Friends concert last Saturday, May 19, at Trinity Episcopal Church in Shepherdstown.
The recipients were Allyson Hager and Shelby Ward, of Martinsburg High, and Dalton Kendig, of Hedgesville High.
The accompanying photo shows, from left to right, Friends board member Andrew McMillian and then Hager, Ward and Kendig.
All three of the students were recommended highly by the faculty at their schools.
Hager has been one of Martinsburg High’s leading Voice students, serving on the school’s top auditioned choirs. She has also been active as a student teacher and has helped promote the school’s music program as a member of the Tri-M Music Honor Society. She will attend West Liberty University in the fall, majoring in Music Education with an emphasis on Voice.
Ward has also been a leading Voice student and a member of the Tri-M Society. She has been a section leader, the president of the show choir and a teaching assistant. She will be attending West Virginia University, majoring in Vocal Performance.
Kendig will also be attending WVU, majoring in Music Education. He plays the violin with the Berkeley County High School Symphony Orchestra and is concertmaster of the Hedgesville High orchestra. He also sings bass in the school’s Chamber Choir and is a member of the Shepherd University Community Orchestra. During his Senior year, he was chosen to be a member of the West Virginia State High School Orchestra. McMillan said the scholarships are part of an ongoing effort by the Friends group to help support music education in local schools.

The Friends of Music have presented a $500 grant to the Spring Mills Middle School to cover the cost of new music-education software for the school’s music students.
The grant was presented at an assembly of choral students at the school on Tuesday, April 24. In the accompanying photo, Friends of Music President Linda Walker is shown holding the left edge of an outsized version of the check, with Friends’ Office Manager Jennifer Perrotte, center, and music teacher Jessica Ruqus, right.
The software, called “SmartMusic,” provides access to an award-winning, web-based music-education platform. This platform includes an extensive music library that makes it easy for teachers to create individualized assignments for students, and for students to explore different works on their own.
Its interactive features allow students to perform along with professional accompaniment, record and listen to their performances, and hear their parts in context. This allows them to hear and see what needs improvement. Then, they can use the software to submit their best performances for assessment and guidance by their teachers.
Friends President Walker said the donation is part of an ongoing effort by the Friends to help support music education in local schools. She said the organization plans to dedicate a total of $7,000 to this purpose this year, twice as much as last year.