New Music Guild Fall Concerts Feature Sobieska & Two Other Guest Artists
Violinist/Violist Wanda Sobieska returns as Annual Fall Concerts featured guest artist to open the New Music Guild, Inc. season with two free admission events. Pianist Anthony Ruggiero and clarinetist Marissa Lyerly will assist her.
Violinist/Violist Wanda Sobieska returns as Annual Fall Concerts featured guest artist to open the New Music Guild, Inc. season with two free admission events. Pianist Anthony Ruggiero and clarinetist Marissa Lyerly will assist her.
The first concert will be 7:00 p.m. Friday December 7th, 2018 at Saints Peter and Paul Church, Holy Apostles Parish, 421 Covington Street in downtown Youngstown. If you take Lincoln Ave. west from 5th Ave. on the YSU Campus, it intersects Covington after about half a mile. The brown brick Art Nouveau church has an attractive steeple and will be on your right. It is a gorgeous acoustic space.
The second concert will be 7:00 p.m. Saturday December 8th, 2018 at Jefferson Congregational Church (UCC), an attractive small red brick church built in 1835.
It is at 41 East Jefferson Street in Jefferson, Ohio. It is an intimate space with excellent acoustics. Both churches will sponsor special receptions in honor of Sobieska, Ruggiero, and Lyerly.
The concerts will include Henryk Wieniawski’s Polonaise in D Major, Bela Bartok’s Duet No. 21 Greeting for the New Year, works by Youngstown State University Professor Emeritus, Robert Rollin, and more.
Born in Warsaw, Poland, Sobieska belongs to the fifth generation of a family of musicians and musicologists. She has appeared as solo and chamber musician in the United States, Poland, and Canada. She regularly plays in many professional orchestras. She began studying violin at the age of five, and attended the Grazyna Bacewicz School of Music in Warsaw, the Cleveland Music School Settlement, and the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, where she earned her Bachelor’s in Violin Performance summa cum laude.
Sobieska is also a gifted arranger and has studied composition for many years. Recent arranging engagements include commissions by the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra and the English Symphony Orchestra. In 2009 she launched www.freegigmusic.com, a website dedicated to making much-needed sheet music available to working musicians. Featuring her own practical arrangements of commonly requested pieces available for free while adhering to standards of high quality, the site has a surprisingly large following worldwide.
Dana alumni Anthony Ruggiero is an exceptionally talented pianist, organist, and choir director who has worked at many churches in Northeast Ohio and Florida.
Currently a Dana Faculty member, he is known for his accuracy and expressiveness as a performer. Melissa Lyerly is completing her clarinet Master of Music performance degree in Clarinet under her mentor, Professor Alice Wang and has played next to her in the Opera Western Reserve Orchestra. She has served as principal clarinet of the Dana Wind Ensemble, the Dana Symphony Orchestra, and in University Opera Productions. Her passion for the clarinet includes a strong interest in chamber music.
Sobieska is making a new arrangement for the trio performers. It will be a version from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata, Wachet Auf, also known as Sleepers Wake. There will also be selections appropriate to the Christmas season.
The trio will also perform Dana Emeritus Professor Robert Rollin’s Trio on a Poem by D. H. Lawrence. Ruggiero will perform several of Rollin’s solo piano compositions. Lyerly will play the Youngstown premiere of Rollin’s The Gifts of Spring for solo Bb Clarinet originally composed for Kent faculty clarinetist Amitai Vardi.
The New Music Guild, Inc. Presents: Rotberg/Kim Violin & Piano Duo In Concert, June 8-9, 2018
The Rotberg/Kim Duo will present two Northeast Ohio concerts under New Music Guild, Inc. auspices. They will perform at 7:00 p.m. Friday June 8th, 2018 at Saints Peter and Paul Church, Holy Apostles Parish, 421 Covington Street in downtown Youngstown, and at the same time the next night at the Jefferson Congregational Church, 41 East Jefferson Street in Jefferson, Ohio. Both musicians are faculty at the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory and perform regularly with the Chagrin Chamber Series in Metropolitan Cleveland.
Violinist Barton Samuel Rotberg has performed as a soloist throughout Europe, North, and Central America. A laureate of several important competitions, he has served as concertmaster for the Warren Philharmonic, Opera Columbus, Cleveland’s Opera Per Tutti, and Illinois’ Southwest Symphony. He has specialized in chamber music and was a founding member of the Davanti Trio, which toured the U.S. and abroad under Ford Foundation support. Rotberg holds a music performance doctorate from Michigan State University.
Korean Pianist Sungeun Kim has played as a concerto soloist in European and Asian venues and at American festivals. A first-prize winner of the Virginia Waring International Piano Competition, she has appeared as guest artist all over the U.S.
Notable soloist appearances have included the Russian Federal Orchestra in Moscow, the Banff Festival Orchestra in Canada, and the Gijon Symphony Orchestra in Spain. She received the performance doctorate from the Peabody Institute of Music of Johns Hopkins University.
The duo will focus on 20th and 21st century repertoire. The works will include Hungarian composer Bela Bartok’s Six Romanian Dances, Ottorino Respighi’s Sonata in B Minor, Jules Massenet’s Meditation from Thais, and several of YSU Emeritus Professor Robert Rollin’s compositions.
Rollin’s pieces will include Welsh Song, inspired by David of the White Rock, an ancient Welsh melody; Variations and Interludes on an Old Polish Carol, constructed on a Polish Christmas carol with interludes from tunes of the Carpathian Mountains; The Wandering Bird, a contrapuntal setting of a Puerto Rican folk song; and Images of Africa, combining a Zulu melody with original material. and using the uniquely African technique of playing at several speeds at the same time.
Violinist Gwyneth Rollin, accompanied by the composer, will open the concert with Two Melodies About Elijah (2018), Rollin’s most recent composition.
The Rotberg/Kim Duo will also play the Allegro moderato from Franz Schubert’s
Sonata in A Minor, D. 385 Opus 137 No. 2. An After Party in honor of Rotberg and Kim will take place after each concert. Admission to both events is free.
Download the Program (in .docx format)
June 8 and 9 2018 PROGRAM Roteberg and Kim
