On Sunday, March 26 at 3:00 p.m. at the Lyman Center for the Performing Arts at Southern Connecticut State University, guest conductor and music director candidate Perry So will lead the New Haven Symphony Orchestra (NHSO) in a concert program including Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, León’s Ácana, and Barber’s Violin Concerto featuring guest soloist Aubree Oliverson.
In describing his musical selections, Perry So says, “Our concert presents three breakthrough pieces by three composers… three lonely musicians working hard to carve out a place for themselves in a world skeptical of what they stood for. Ludwig van Beethoven perpetually cut an alienating figure socially and professionally. His third symphony is an epic personal response of a young artist to the political and social upheavals of his time, in the process discovering his iconic voice. Joined by violinist Aubree Oliverson, we will catch composer Samuel Barber at the height of his success in the lyrical and elegiac Violin Concerto. Recently honored at the Kennedy Center, widespread recognition has finally come for Cuban-born composer Tania León, whose sinuous and kaleidoscopic work Ácana will open our concert.”
Perry So is the Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra (Navarre Symphony Orchestra). He has held posts as Assistant and Associate Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Conducting Fellow of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Artistic Collaborator of the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias in Spain and is a member of the conducting faculty at the Manhattan School of Music. When he was a student at Yale he founded an orchestra and led the undergraduate opera company. He received his formal training as a conductor under Gustav Meier at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore and has received First and Special Prizes at the International Prokofiev Conducting Competition in St Petersburg, Russia.
Four music director finalists – Donato Cabrera, Tania Miller, Perry So, and James Blachly – will each spend a different week in New Haven this winter and spring, rehearsing with the orchestra for a concert that they have programmed, leading music education activities, and meeting with key community constituency groups. The NHSO’s search committee, comprising musicians, board directors, and community members, will announce the NHSO’s new music director in the Summer of 2023. Current Music Director Alasdair Neale’s tenure will continue through the Spring of 2024 and the new Music Director will begin in the role in the Summer of 2024.
Praised for her evocative lyricism and joyful, genuine approach, young American violinist Aubree Oliverson is proving to be one of the most compelling artists of her generation. Aubree won the ‘2021 Special Prize of Merit’ for violin at the prestigious Verbier Festival Academy in Switzerland, a National YoungArts Foundation award, was honored as a United States Presidential Scholar in the Arts, and was selected for the Dorothy DeLay Fellowship and concerto performance at the Aspen Music Festival. She made her solo debut with the Utah Symphony at age eleven, her Carnegie Hall Weill Hall recital debut at age twelve as winner of the American Protégé International Strings Competition, and has been featured on NPR’s hit radio show From The Top several times.
Tickets: Tickets start at $15. Tickets for youth 17 and under are free with the purchase of an adult ticket. Click here to purchase tickets or call (203) 693-1486 Monday-Friday from 12-5pm.
So Conducts Beethoven is sponsored by Southern Connecticut State University, the National Endowment for the Arts, Stone Agency Insurance, Frontier, and the New Haven Register.
