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Akron Symphony:
“Serenade for Strings”
(Jan. 14) 

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by Kevin McLaughlin

The Akron Symphony Orchestra was particularly well represented by its string section on Saturday, January 14, as it continued to put on display both the strength of its players and its capacity for varied and engaging programming. 

The concert, titled “Serenade for Strings,” featured six chamber works, all performed on the ASO’s home stage at E.J. Thomas Hall. The players were seated in front of a scrim to enhance projection and simulate a chamber setting. The program included J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, Julia Perry’s introspective Pastoral, and Xavier Foley’s Double Concerto “For Justice and Peace,” written in 2019. Also a double bassist, Foley was featured twice as soloist — first, alongside violinist Eunice Kim in the Double Concerto and following intermission, in Bottesini’s Double Bass Concerto No. 2. The evening concluded with a deft performance of Tchaikovsky’s intimate Serenade for Strings.

[Read more…]

ChamberFest Cleveland: introducing bassist Xavier Foley

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Xavier-Foleyby Mike Telin

When asked, most musicians are able to pinpoint an event that led them to make the decision to pursue music as a career. For bassist Xavier Foley, it was in 2006 when at eleven years old and in the sixth grade, he shifted his attention away from his teacher Miss King’s discussion of nouns, adverbs, and clauses, in favor of making a bow and arrow out of a paper clip and a rubber band. Click here to watch a video where the Marietta, Georgia native explains all. And yes, it’s quite funny.

Since that fateful day, Foley has gone on to become a First Prize winner in 2014 at the Sphinx Competition and Astral Artists National Auditions, as well as a winner at the 2016 Young Concert Artists Auditions. [Read more…]

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