Saturday September 19, 2009
WILMINGTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Opening Night: Grieg, Berwald and Sibelius
8:00 pm
Kenan Auditorium
Please call the Kenan Auditorium Ticket Office at 962-3500, toll free at 1-800-732-3643. The ticket office is open Monday through Friday from 10am to 6pm. Remaining tickets go on sale one hour before the concert.
Elizabeth Loparits, piano
Steven Errante, conductor
Celebrate the Wilmington Symphony's 38th season with a musical tour of Scandinavia as UNCW faculty member Elizabeth Loparits performs the beloved Piano Concerto in A Minor of Norwegian Edvard Grieg, a cornerstone of piano repertoire and one of the most enduringly popular of all concertos.
Your Nordic excursion sets off with Swedish composer Franz Berwald's most often performed work - - the dramatically compelling Tragic Overture to Estrella de Soria - - before visiting the beautiful Finnish landscape in Jan Sibelius' triumphal Symphony No. 3 in C.
ELIZABETH LOPARITS began her professional career in her native Hungary, where she won top prizes at the 1995 National Bartók Piano Competition and the 1996 Kodály-Bartók Chamber Music Competition. As a soloist and collaborative artist she has appeared on recitals in Hungary, Austria, Costa Rica, and throughout the United States. After winning a concerto competition in 2001 she performed with the North Carolina Symphony. Recently she appeared as guest artist at UNC Greensboro's Focus on Piano Literature, and served for two summers as principal Young Artist coach/accompanist at the prestigious Opera North Company.
Loparits is an active teacher, clinician, and adjudicator in NC and nationally. She holds an education degree and a chamber music artist diploma from the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Pécs, Hungary, a Master of Music degree from Illinois State University, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from UNC Greensboro. Currently she serves as faculty and staff accompanist at UNCW.
STEVEN ERRANTE was born in Dearborn, Michigan in 1953. At an early age he began arranging, composing and conducting for various musical groups in the Detroit area. By the time he graduated from high school, his music was being performed by leading orchestras and musicians.
At college, he studied composition and conducting at the University of Michigan and the Juilliard School, studying with Leslie Bassett, Vincent Persichetti, and Uri Mayer. During this time, he wrote the score for The Boar's Head Festival, a work heard annually in the Detroit since 1972.
Dr. Errante has held teaching posts at the University of Michigan, Northern Michigan University, the University of Richmond and currently is a Professor of Music at UNCW. He has appeared with the Richmond Sinfonia, the Richmond Community Orchestra, the Dearborn Symphony, and since 1986 has been conductor of the Wilmington Symphony. He has written a number of commissioned works and frequently makes orchestrations and arrangements to accompany WSO guest artists. He lives in Wilmington with daughters Emmy and Casey and his wife Sandy, who is the founder and director of the Girlsš Choir of Wilmington and owner of Kindermusik with Sandy Errante.
Steven Errante has a special gift for making music an exciting adventure, whether it is through his teaching, conducting, or composing. Those who have experienced his genuine warmth and intense enthusiasm for music may attest to the deeper understanding and heightened emotional experiences they have discovered under his musical direction and in his compositions.
Sponsored by Wilmington Gastroenterology Associates
Brought to you by the Department of Music.
