This preview provided by North Carolina Symphony.
The North Carolina Symphony will continue its 2015/16 Southern Pines/Moore County season with A Baroque Christmas on Sunday, Dec. 6, at 7:30 p.m., in Lee Auditorium at Pinecrest High School in Southern Pines.
Led by guest conductor Paul Agnew, this festive celebration showcases music from Bach and Handel, including the Brandenburg Concerto and Mass in B minor by Johann Sebastian Bah, the Pastoral Symphony and Hallelujah Chorus from Georg Frideric Handel’s Messiah, and many more. The concerts will feature the North Carolina Master Chorale, and NCS soloists Dovid Friedlander, violin; Elizabeth Phelps, violin; Anne Whaley Laney, flute; and Mary E. Boone, flute.
Conductor Paul Agnew is in continuous demand as an outstanding interpreter of the baroque and pre-classical repertoire. Born in Glasgow, he was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, before embarking on a career that has taken him throughout the world as a conductor and as a singer.
Following a highly successful conducting debut with Les Arts Florissants in Paris in 2007, Mr. Agnew was appointed Joint Musical Director of the orchestra in 2013. He has conducted performances of Messiah for Le Concert d’Astrée and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra as well as Handel’s La Resurrezione at the Atelier of the Opéra national de Paris.
Dovid Friedlander joined the North Carolina Symphony as Associate Concertmaster since 2005. He previously performed with the Columbus Symphony and was the Assistant Concertmaster of the San Antonio Symphony. He has also played with the Boston Symphony at the Tanglewood Music Festival and regularly with the Pittsburgh Symphony in concerts and on tour, with such conductors as Seiji Ozawa, Mariss Jansons and Claudio Abbado. In addition to playing with the North Carolina Symphony, Mr. Friedlander is an active chamber musician in the Raleigh area.
Principal Second Violin Elizabeth Phelps grew up outside New Haven, Connecticut, and began playing violin at the age of four. She received a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Paul Kantor and Stephen Rose. While a student, she also played in a number of orchestras, including the Canton Symphony under Gerhardt Zimmermann, where she was Assistant Principal Second Violin. Ms. Phelps joined the North Carolina Symphony in 2013.
Prior to becoming Principal Flute with the North Carolina Symphony in 1986, Anne Whaley Laney was Principal Flute with the Canton Symphony and piccoloist with the Aspen Festival Orchestra. She has appeared as flute soloist with the St. Louis Symphony as its 1982 Young Artist winner, playing Mozart’s Concerto in D Major, K.314, and with the Canton Symphony, playing John Corigliano’s Pied Piper Fantasy. Along with her solo performances, one of her most memorable experiences includes a performance at Carnegie Hall in 1987 with the North Carolina Symphony.
Mary E. Boone is Assistant Principal Flute with the North Carolina Symphony. In addition to appearing as a soloist with the NCS, she has appeared with the South Carolina Chamber Orchestra and Augusta Symphony. Formerly Principal Flute with the Augusta Symphony, Ms. Boone has also performed with the Columbia Philharmonic, Tanglewood Festival, Waterloo Festival, Bowdoin Summer Music Festival in Maine and Bellingham Festival in Washington.
The Resident Chorus of the North Carolina Symphony, the North Carolina Master Chorale has been performing choral-orchestral masterworks for more than 60 years. The Master Chorale boasts two renowned ensembles: a 170-voice symphonic choir and a 22-voice professional chamber choir that presents a diverse repertoire from the Renaissance to Contemporary. The Master Chorale regularly collaborates with symphony orchestras, opera companies, ballet and touring productions.
Other concerts in the 2015/16 Southern Pines/Moore County Series include:
- Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto on Sunday, Jan. 17, 2016, at 7:30 p.m., with Conductor Marcel Lehninger. Inon Barnatan performs Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, “Emperor.” The concert also features the orchestra performing Brahms’ Tragic Overture, and “Suspend,” by Andrew Norman.
- “Orchestral Love Stories” on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016, at 8 p.m., with Music Director Grant Llewellyn. Classic love stories through the ages, with selections from Romeo and Juliet, Carmen, Samson and Delilah and Tristan and Isolde, plus much more.
- Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on Tuesday, March 22, 2016, at 8 p.m. The concert which features the talents of Symphony musicians Karen Strittmatter Galvin, violin, Elizabeth Phelps, violin, Jacqueline Saed Wolborsky, violin, Dovid Friedlander, violin, and Rebekah Binford, violin, will showcase Vivaldi’s masterpiece, plus Musica celestis from Aaron Jay Kernis, and “Seeing is Believing” by Nico Muhly. Grant Llewellyn conducts.
- Beethoven’s Violin Concerto on Thursday, April 28, 2016, at 8 p.m., is the Season Finale. Led by Grant Llewellyn, the violin concerto will be performed by Noah Bendix-Balgley. The orchestra will also perform “Absolute Jest” by John Adams.
Tickets to the Southern Pines Series performance on Dec. 6 range from $24 to $53. Student tickets are $10. To purchase tickets, visit the North Carolina Symphony website at www.ncsymphony.org or call the Symphony Box Office at 919.733.2750 or toll free 877.627.6724. Tickets are also available at The Country Bookshop, 140 NW Broad St., in Southern Pines, the Campbell House, 482 East Connecticut Ave. in Southern Pines, and one hour prior to the concert outside Lee Auditorium at Pinecrest High School, 250 Voit Gilmore Lane, Southern Pines, N.C., 28387.
In addition to stellar performances, North Carolina Symphony concertgoers can enjoy pre-concert talks, post-concert discussions, and “Meet the Artists,” which feature interactive conversations with guest artists and select orchestra members, at many Symphony events. Before the Dec. 6 performance, Josiah Stevenson will host a Meet the Artist session at 6:30 p.m. in the Pinecrest High School Band Room.
About the North Carolina Symphony
Founded in 1932, the North Carolina Symphony gives more than 200 performances annually to adults and school children in more than 50 North Carolina counties. An entity of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, the orchestra employs 66 professional musicians, under the artistic leadership of Music Director and Conductor Grant Llewellyn, Resident Conductor William Henry Curry, and Associate Conductor David Glover.
Based in downtown Raleigh’s spectacular Meymandi Concert Hall at the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts and an outdoor summer venue at Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, N.C., the Symphony performs about 60 concerts annually in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Cary metropolitan area. It holds regular concert series in Fayetteville, New Bern, Southern Pines and Wilmington — as well as individual concerts in many other North Carolina communities throughout the year — and conducts one of the most extensive education programs of any U.S. orchestra.
Concert/Event Listings:
North Carolina Symphony
A Baroque Christmas
Paul Agnew, conductor
North Carolina Master Chorale
Dovid Friedlander, violin
Elizabeth Phelps, violin
Anne Whaley Laney, flute
Mary Boone, flute
Dec. 6, 2015 7:30 p.m.
Lee Auditorium, Pinecrest High School, Southern Pines, NC
BACH: “Jauchzeit, frohlocket!” [Shout, Rejoice]
from Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248
North Carolina Master Chorale
BACH: “Ich freue mich in dir” [Rejoice In Us]
from Cantata, BWV 133
North Carolina Master Chorale
HANDEL: For Unto Us a Child is Born” from Messiah
North Carolina Master Chorale
BACH: Concerto No. 2 in E major for Violin and
String Orchestra, BWV 1042
I. Allegro
II. Adagio
III. Allegro assai
Dovid Friedlander, violin
BACH: Liebster Immanuel, Herzog der Frommen”
Beloved Emmanuel, Prince of the Devout] from Cantata 123
BACH: Mass in B minor, BWV232
Et incarnatus est
Crucifixus
Et resurrexit
BACH: Magnificat, BWV 243
I. Magnificat anima mea
II. Et exultavit
III. Quia respexit –
IV. Omnes generations
V. Quia fecit
VI. Et Misericordia
VII. Fecit potentiam
VIII. Deposuit
IX. Esurientes
X. Suscepit Israel
XI. Sicut locutus
XII. Gloria Patri
HANDEL: “Lift Up Your Heads, Oh Ye Gates” from Messiah
HANDEL: Pifa (Pastoral Symphony) from Messiah
BACH: “Wie sol lich dich empfangen”
[How Shall We Fitly Greet Him] from Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248
BACH: Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G major,
BWV 1049
I. Allegro
II. Andante
III. Presto
Anne Whaley Laney, flute
Mary Boone, flute
Elizabeth Phelps, violin
BACH: “Das neugeborne Kindelein” [The Newborn Infant Child]
from Cantata, BWV 122
North Carolina Master Chorale
HANDEL: Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah
