The 38th New Music Guild, Inc. Festival, May 17-19, 2024

Guest Artists, Thomas Osuga, Dr. Sho Omagari, & Wanda Sobieska

Osuga, Omagari, and Sobieska will highlight the main concert, the Festival Gala, at Sts. Peter & Paul Church, Holy Apostles Parish, 421 Covington St. in downtown Youngstown, at 3:00 pm Sunday, May 19th , 2024. They will present works by Rachmaninov, Vitali, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Yolanda Adams, Louise Andriessen, Steve Reich, and Robert Rollin. The Festival Chamber Orchestra conducted by Rollin will perform works by Johannes Brahms; Polish composer, Mieczyslaw Karlowicz; Kent, Ohio composer arranger, Sobieska; Rollin, and more. Admission is free.

On Friday, May 17th , 2024 Osuga and Omagari will play four School Concerts. At 8:00 and 8:30 am they will play two Canfield shows; at 11:00 am., Youngstown’s Taft Elementary; and at 1:00 p.m., Lordstown Schools. Dana alum Osuga’s technical and sight-reading skills are legendary. Omagari has an active career as violin soloist.

Osuga has been co-coordinator of Preparatory Piano at New York City’s Mannes College of Music (http://www.newschool.edu/mannes/) since 1994. Students in his large private studio regularly pursue careers at top levels conservatories, colleges, and graduate schools. An internationally acclaimed solo and chamber artist, he is founder and artistic director of Aurista Chamber Music, a flexible ensemble known for its New York performances (http://www.myspace.com/auristachambermusic). Organizer and faculty member at international music festivals in Italy and Germany, he presently coordinates concerts at the Puffin Foundation in Teaneck, New Jersey. He has recorded for the Capstone, Legacy, and Coronet labels.

Violinist Sho Omagari began performing at age 5. He holds a Bachelors of Music from Mannes College of Music, a Masters from Juilliard, and a Violin Doctorate from New York State University at Stony Brook under full scholarship. He has won numerous prestigious awards, and was the first recipient of the Circle of Wind Music Scholarship Award in memory of the victims of 9/11 and the 3/11 Japanese Earthquake. His ocean liner performance in memory of Titanic victims was broadcast worldwide. He concertizes regularly.

Born in Warsaw, Poland, Wanda Sobieska is the fifth generation in a family of musicians and musicologists. She holds a Bachelors Degree in violin performance from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Based in northeast Ohio, she is active as a solo, chamber, and orchestral musician. She has performed with Ashland Symphony, Tuscarawas Philharmonic, Youngstown New Music Guild, International Musicians League, The Cleveland Opera, Our Lady of Lourdes Concert Series in Phoenix, AZ, and the Electric Light Orchestra Tribute Band. She has provided arrangements for San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, English Symphony Orchestra, and Metropolitan Opera; and runs freegigmusic.com, a website that provides sheet music arrangements: since inception in 2009, it has served over 6 million musicians from all over the world.

There will be a reception after the Sunday afternoon concert in honor of Thomas Osuga, Sho Omagari and Wanda Sobieska. All events are free and open to the public.

March 3rd Annual Winter Concert with Sylvia Games DuBos & Helga Scheibert

The New Music Guild, Inc. will present its Winter Concert at Sts. Peter and Paul Church, Holy Apostles Parish, 421 Covington St. in downtown Youngstown, at 3:00 pm, Sunday, March 3^rd, 2024. The Guild focuses on 20^th and 21^st Century music, but also highlights classical music and sponsors visits by guest composers and performers.

The Sunday afternoon concert will feature two guest artists: Argentinean cellist, Silvia Games DuBos and Pittsburgh pianist/composer, Helga Scheibert, playing music by classical and modern composers.

Ms. Games DuBos is an Argentinian cellist living in the United States since 2006. Silvia Games DuBos is currently the principal cellist of the Washington, PA, and Greenville, PA Symphonies and cello section of the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra. Ms. DuBos has performed nationally and internationally as a chamber musician, orchestra musician, and teacher in the United States, France, Italy, Argentina, Brazil, and Ecuador, among other countries with her recent participation in the Latin American Symphony, an event held in Córdoba Argentina in February 2024.

Currently, she teaches the Strings Program at SMARTS, a community art school in Youngstown, OH, working with K-12 students and has her private studios in the Pittsburgh, PA, and Youngstown, OH areas, applying traditional and Suzuki as methods of teaching. She has a Master’s Degree in Performance from Duquesne University.

Pittsburgh Pianist/Composer, Dr. Helga Scheibert was born and had early studies in Transylvania, completed the Bachelors in Romania, the Artist Diploma and Masters at Duquesne, University and the Piano Performance Doctorate at West Virginia University. She has performed on Romanian National and West Virginia Public Radio, and is winner of numerous competitions. She is an active composer with special interests in classical, jazz, and contemporary music. Since 2020 she has released 2 albums of her own works.

The concert will open with performances by New Music Guild Coordinators, Gwyneth Rollin, violin and Robert Rollin, piano. They will together play Robert Rollin’s Welsh Song, a setting of David of the White Rock, which he learned from Ieuan Roberts, his wife’s father, and his Passover Songs, a setting of 2 folk melodies sung at the Seder. Rollin will perform his Recollections of Sally, in memory of close friend, talented violinist & choral director, Sally Maloy Dolovy & Night Thoughts I. Gains DuBos and Scheibert will perform Carlos Guastavino’s, La Rosa y El Sauce and Victor Simon’s Inattendu, both mainstays of the Argentinian repertoire, Rollin’s Spiritual Images, based on gospel music, the first movement of Beethoven’s Sonata No.3, and Rollin’s Two Corridos, settings of Mexican folk songs. As soloist Du Bos will play part of Bach’s Cello Suite, the world premiere of Rollin’s In Memory of Wayne, for his good friend trombonist Wayne Kankovsky, and his Memorial Melodies and Remembering Sally. Scheibert will play her own, Magic in the Forrest.

An after party with refreshments in honor of Silvia Games DuBos and Dr. Helga Scheibert will take place at the Church basement fellowship hall immediately following the Sunday afternoon concert.