by Peter Feher
The history of classical music sometimes borders on mythology. The music on the Akron Symphony’s Saturday, February 22 program has taken on this fabled, quasi-historical quality — Mozart’s Requiem, Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony, and Beethoven’s over-finished Leonore Overture No. 3. Fortunately, in performance the music more than lived up to the story. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Through a lucky series of encounters, Irish conductor Karen Ni Bhroin (pronounced Knee VRIN) found her way first to graduate studies at Kent State University, then to the assistant conductor’s position with the Akron Symphony Chorus, and most recently — the news came down just this morning — to her appointment as assistant conductor with the Winston-Salem Symphony.
In that second capacity, the 29-year-old conductor is preparing the Akron Symphony Chorus for its performance of the Mozart Requiem under Christopher Wilkins on Saturday evening, February 22 at E.J. Thomas Hall.
I reached Ni Bhroin by telephone to ask how that chain of events got started. “I had been freelancing in Dublin for five years after my undergraduate degree at Trinity College, and in 2013 I met Jungho Kim, who was finishing his doctorate at Eastman,” she said. “We were Facebook friends, and he posted in 2018 that he was looking for an assistant at Kent State, and that’s how it all started. I applied and I won the position. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Programs of opera scenes are pedagogical standards in music schools, but Kent State Opera’s fall excerpts offered something special this time around. The premiere of senior education major, oboist, and composer Scott Little’s one-act opera, The Story of an Hour, along with two large chunks of Mozart and Berlioz revealed deep talent among Kent’s voice students in cleverly staged performances by Marla Berg with music direction by Jay White. Karen Ni Bhroin and Tori Petrak conducted, and pianist Vicky Tong fluently covered the orchestra parts. [Read more…]