Concerto Competition Winners Play With Baylor Symphony

by Richard Veit

Winners of the 1998 Baylor Concerto Competition will appear as soloists with the Baylor University Symphony Orchestra in a convocation at 8 p.m. Thursday in Jones Concert Hall in the Glennis McCrary Music Building. The concert will be conducted by Stephen Heyde, director of orchestral studies and Conductor-in-Residence. Winners of the annual Baylor Concerto Competition were announced following the final round of performances on Nov. 14.
Opening the Baylor Symphony concert will be an adaptation of the "Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel," an extended piano work of 24 variations written by Johannes Brahms in 1861. The orchestra will play 11 of these variations--plus the opening "Aria" and final "Fugue"-- in arrangements by students in Dr. Eric Lai's elementary orchestration class.
Next, Zhe Li, second-place finisher in the competition's Concerto Division, will perform the opening movement of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. Ms. Li is a graduate student from Shenyang, China. At Baylor, she studies with Artist-in-Residence Krassimira Jordan and Dr. John Cozza.
Following intermission, bassoonist David Famiano will be the soloist in a performance of Weber's "Andante and Hungarian Rondo." Famiano, who finished second in the Concertino Division, is a graduate student from Louisville, Ky. He studies with Dr. Kenton Moore.
Antonín Dvorák's "Waldesruhe" (or "Silent Woods") will be played by cellist Nick Hardie, a sophomore from Waco. Hardie, the top finisher in the competition's Concertino Division, studies with his father, Dr. Gary Hardie.
Concluding the program will be a performance of Aaron Copland's Clarinet Concerto, with soloist Jun Qian, a graduate student from Shanghai, China. Qian, who won top honors in the Concerto Division, is a student of Dr. Richard Shanley.
This concert is free and open to the public. For more information, call 710-3991.