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Youngstown Symphony with pianist Vadym Kholodencko (October 3)

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by Robert Rollin

KHOLODENKO-VadimThis past Saturday night the Youngstown Symphony opened its 2015-16 Powers Auditorium season with a powerful, all-Russian program. Prior to coming to Ohio, Music Director Randall Craig Fleisher served as Mstislav Rostropovich’s assistant conductor at the National Symphony. Fleisher clearly displayed a talent and predilection for this music, and the Orchestra responded beautifully. The evening’s highlight was an excellent rendition of Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky’s impassioned Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Opus 74, “Pathetique” (1893). [Read more…]

Youngstown Symphony’s Mozart and “City Lights” (March 21)

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by Robert Rollin

Chaplin-City-LightsLast Saturday evening, March 21, the Youngstown Symphony presented the second program of its Powers Auditorium classical series, City Lights, an interesting concert intermingling Mozart and film music by Charlie Chaplin. Conductor Randall Craig Fleisher gave a short prelude, astutely pointing out that both Mozart and Chaplin shared an ability to include humor, while at the same time imbuing their outputs with pathos. [Read more…]

Review: Youngstown Symphony with Cliburn finalist Tomoki Sakata (September 20)

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by Robert Rollin

SAKATA-TomokiLast Saturday night the Youngtown Symphony opened its season with an excellent concert of Romantic audience favorites. The evening’s highlight was a scintillating performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Opus 43 by the gifted Japanese pianist Tomoki Sakata. Sakata was a finalist and the youngest competitor at the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas. [Read more…]

Review: Youngstown Symphony — “Celtic Glory” with violinist Timothy Fain (March 15)

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by Robert Rollin

FAIN-TimothyLast Saturday night’s Youngstown Symphony concert, billed as “Celtic Glory,” should more properly have been called “Scottish Glory,’ since it presented an interesting program of three very different works, unified only in their connections to Scotland and its music. The term “Celtic” properly refers to modern peoples, descended from the ancient Celts and speaking Celtic languages, including the Irish, the Scots of the Scottish highlands and Hebrides, the Welsh, and the Bretons. Celtic languages and traditions are so varied that conductor Randall Fleischer was wise in limiting himself to music related to Scotland.

The liveliest and perhaps most topical piece was An Orkney Wedding, With Sunrise, by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, the only living composer on the program. [Read more…]

Review: Youngstown Symphony with pianist Fei-Fei Dong (October 19)

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by Robert Rollin

DONG-Fei-FeiThe Youngstown Symphony presented its second Powers Auditorium classical concert on Saturday evening, October 19th with a fine and varied program. The evening’s highlight, an excellent performance of the popular Edvard Grieg Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16, featured the young and remarkably talented Fei-Fei Dong as soloist.

Dong, a first-prize winner of the Schumann International Piano competition for Young Musicians, the Asia-Pacific International Chopin Piano Competition, and the Steinway and Sons International Youth Piano Competition, has debuted with orchestras in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, and Aspen, Colorado. She was also a finalist in the 2013 Van Cliburn Competition.

The first movement, Allegro molto moderato, after its short timpani roll opening, immediately presented a brilliant piano cadenza performed by Dong with steely precision and poised expression. She showed great rhythmic control and played her solo passages masterfully, but without being overbearing or excessively forceful. Conductor Randall Fleischer maintained careful control of the musical flow—always shaping the evolving interplay of horn solos, cellos, other members of the orchestra, and the piano solo. After the cello section theme restatement, Dong returned with a flashier cadenza replete with terrific muscular playing and lots of decorative trills. [Read more…]

Preview: Youngstown Symphony and Inbal Segev to present new cello concerto by Avner Dorman this Saturday

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by Mike Telin

SEGEV-Inbal“What captivates me about Avner Dorman’s cello concerto is that it is so different than anything I have done before,” cellist Inbal Segev enthusiastically remarks over the telephone. “It is definitely on steroids. The first movement really hits you. The last time I played it, people jumped because they were not expecting a classical piece to sound like that. But it does grip you right away.”

On Saturday, September 21 at 8 PM in Youngstown’s DeYor Performing Arts Center, Inbal Segev will give the Ohio premier of Avner Dorman’s Cello Concerto with the Youngstown Symphony under the direction of Randall Craig Fleischer. The concert also includes Glinka’s Overture to Russian and Ludmilla and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.

Composer Avner Dorman is quickly establishing a presence in Northeast Ohio, having recently been named Music Director of CityMusic Cleveland. He describes his piece as “a concerto for a cello that forgot it was a cello,” and Segev quickly agrees that it is unlike anything that she has done before, adding that “Avner is a great guy and of course his music is great too!”

The story of how the concerto came to be is a real case of like minds being in the same place at the same time. [Read more…]

Review: Youngstown Symphony plays Rimsky-Korsakoff & Brahms (April 13)

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by Robert Rollin

FLEISCHER-RandallCraigSaturday night’s Youngstown Symphony concert in Powers Auditorium was an absolute delight, as the Symphony performed two contrasting masterpieces: Nikolas Rimsky-Korsakoff’s Scheherazade, Op. 35, and Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 in D Major. Op. 73. The many differences between the two works made the evening, the last of the season, especially memorable.

Scheherazade is a marvelous programmatic piece with four episodes in the Sultana’s succession of a thousand and one tales which enthrall the Sultan so much that he forgets to execute her as he had all other wives after their wedding nights. Through her guile and storytelling skill, Scheherazade survives and becomes his permanent bride. The composer used the concertmaster’s solo violin to portray Scheherazade’s story-telling ability and as a means of uniting all four movements, not only with musical timbre, but also with Scheherazade’s theme. [Read more…]

Interview: Zachary De Pue, Nick Kendall & Ranaan Meyer talk about Time for Three

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—a conversation with Mike Telin

Time for Three (photo: Journey Group)

Time for Three premiered Christ Brubeck’s new concerto for two violins, double bass and orchestra with Randall Craig Fleischer and the Youngstown Symphony on March 20. We spoke with the trio by conference call at a radio station in Harrisburg, PA to talk about Time for Three and the new concerto.

Nick: Hi Mike, this is Nick Kendall, one of the violinists.

MT: Yes, we met a couple of weeks ago right after your Oberlin concert.

NK: Yea, that’s right. We have the other guys here as well.

Ranaan Meyer: Hello this is Ranaan, nice to meet you.

MT: Nice to meet you too

Zach De Pue: hello it’s Zach

MT: Hello.

ZDP: You know I lived in Cleveland for a year, and I still have my Browns season tickets.

MT: Do you?

ZDP: Yes I do

MT: Wow you are one of the few who has bothered to keep them.

(lots of laughing) [Read more…]

Interview: Chris Brubeck talks about his new concerto for Time for Three and symphony orchestra

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—a conversation with Mike Telin

On Saturday, March 20, Randall Craig Fleischer conducted the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra and Time for Three in Chris Brubeck’s new concerto for two violins, double bass and orchestra. We talked with the composer by telephone about the new piece.

Mike Telin: You are in Ft. Meyers Florida, with the Gulf Coast Orchestra?

Chris Brubeck: Yes, they are doing the piece I wrote called Quiet Heroes. So I am around for advice, and my buddy on this project Wilfred Brimley will be narrating, and it’s a triple bonus because I get to visit my dad. It’s much better for him here than taking the chance of slipping on the ice back in Connecticut where he used to live.

MT: Yes I just read about this piece on your website, in fact you have a number of interesting orchestral projects happening.

CB: Yes, I think they are interesting. I try to do a couple every year, although almost all of my energy during the past year has been focused on the new Time for Three piece. We are at the countdown to its birth, since I started it nine months ago.

MT: Yes, this sounds like a very interesting piece. I know it was an eight-orchestra commission, but who was it that approached you about being the composer?

CB: Well, to me anyway, it is an interesting and funny story. First, I am not sure if you know that I wrote a violin concerto for Nick Kendall, who is one of the three of Time for Three. But, so much credit needs to be giving to Randall Fleischer, the music Director of the Youngstown Symphony, the Anchorage Symphony and the Hudson Valley Philharmonic. I’ll tell you the whole story.
[Read more…]

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