Berkshire Symphony

Ronald Feldman, director

The Williams College Department of Music presents the Berkshire Symphony with the annual concert featuring the winners of the Student Soloist Competition on Friday, April 15 at 8 p.m. in Chapin Hall on the Williams College campus. A pre-concert talk with conductor Ronald Feldman and the soloists takes place in Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall at 7:15 p.m. on the same evening. These free events are open to the public.

As spring makes a tentative start on the Williams College campus, the Berkshire Symphony prepares the yearly concert featuring winners of the student solo competition that displays the depth of talent found within the orchestra and the practice rooms of the music department. Chapin Hall is typically filled to capacity and the atmosphere is always electric for this very special performance. The power of youth commands this evening, with student soloists, some of whom have been preparing years for such a break-out moment, standing front and center. The chance to finally be the soloist before a full symphony orchestra is a compelling emotional engine for these young performers.

The student performers are chosen in a concerto competition judged by a panel of master musicians earlier in the semester. This year offers a bumper crop of talent. Soprano Holly Fisher ’13 performs the beautiful Mozart aria Voi avete un cor fedele, K. 217. Flautist Jingyi Liu ’14 plays the first movement of the Concerto in D Minor for Violin and Orchestra by Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian. A transcription of the much celebrated violin concerto, Khachaturian encouraged the legendary flute soloist Jean Pierre Rampal to add this work to the repertoire of twentieth century flute music. A popular piece by the great French romantic, Camille Saint-Saëns, movement one of the Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, opus 22 for piano is performed by Madura Watanagase ’12. Finally, a young man with a violist’s velvet touch, Noah Fields ’11, presents a fascinating piece by Paul Hindemith, Trauermusik (Music of Mourning) written in a few short hours one night as the composer traveled to England. The event of the death of King George V overtook his previously planned program requiring a more somber piece. Hindemith, thus inspired, was moved to produce this beautiful solo work for viola during the journey.

Performers are not the only featured artists, as composer Jacob Walls ’11 presents his work Passionate Armistice and Noah Fields ’11 takes the podium to conduct Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture, the composer’s 1807 musical rendering of the tragedy of Coriolanus. Walls describes his piece as a short ride in a fast, yet lyrical machine. The title mixes two metaphors found in Wagner’s prose on overture form: referring to a closed ending he composed to Gluck’s overture to Iphegenia in Aulis, Wagner claimed that brought the main themes to an armistice, “though no full peace,” and referring to Mozart’s overture to Don Giovanni, he lauded its “transfiguring light of music as a passion personified in tones.” Walls’s composition brings multiple passionate threads to an exuberant ending, even if perhaps no full peace.

Not to be forgotten, or relegated to the role of mere accompanist for these rising young stars, the Berkshire Symphony also gets a chance to shine. Romeo & Juliet Overture-Fantasy by Tchaikovsky is one of the composer’s best known and best loved concert pieces.

Promising a program with so much youthful energy and talent to power it, this concert is likely to entertain another capacity crowd. Also on offer is a pre-concert discussion with conductor Ronald Feldman and all the soloists in Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall.

The Berkshire Symphony is conducted by Ronald Feldman and includes nearly 70 members, half of whom are students and half of whom are professional musicians. The ensemble presents four major concerts each season. In addition to performing the great standards of  orchestral repertoire a recurring theme each year is the performance of contemporary works. Championing the works of living American composers has been an integral part of the mission of the Berkshire Symphony.

Noah Fields, surprised to find himself a second semester senior, is from Rochester, New York where he was homeschooled and played with the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. While he originally played the violin, he thought his only way to get to really play anywhere was to switch to the viola. Apparently it worked. He plays in 28 1/2 ensembles at Williams College. He is about to graduate with a degree in English Literature. If anyone would like to contribute to his retirement fund, please email him.

Holly Fisher is a sophomore theatre major from Anchorage, Kentucky. Her interests in music and performance emerged at age three, when she began to study violin, and later expanded to include piano, theatre and voice. She discovered her love for singing at age eight, when she sang a duet about badgers in her second grade class’ musical review. After that, she performed in choirs and musicals for several years, but Holly wasn’t exposed to classical vocal training until her sophomore year of high school, when she began private instruction with Elizabeth Huling of Louisville, Kentucky’s Emerging Artists Group. At Williams, Holly continues to study voice with studio instructor Marlene Walt, and has performed with Concert Choir, Chamber Choir, and Ephoria, as well as appearing in several Cap & Bells musical productions. When she is not singing, Holly enjoys reading, acting, online shopping and tea.

Jingyi Liu is from Willowbrook, Illinois and has been playing flute since she was nine years old. She studied with Kaye Clements and Donna Milanovich and currently studies with Floyd Hebert. She was a member of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra from 2008 until 2010 and attended conservatory at the Merit School of Music from 2007 until 2010. In 2006, Jingyi won the American Music Institute’s Solo Competition. In 2007, she was select to perform in a masterclass for Anthony McGill -Metropolitan Opera- and in the following year,
for Mathieu Dufour-Chicago Symphony Orchestra-. In 2009, her flute quartet won the Midwest Young Artists Chamber Competition-Open Division. In 2010, she performed Bizet’s Carmen Fantasie with the Merit School of Music Wind Ensemble. She has performed live on WFMT -Chicago’s Classical Music Station- on multiple occasions. However, more importantly, Jingyi believes that music is a metaphysical bridge for interpersonal understanding. For three years in high school, she provided free flute lessons to underprivileged middle school students in the Chicagoland area. She has also worked with organizations such as the Instituto de Cervantes and the Spanish government to promote cross-cultural understanding.

Besides flute, Jingyi also plays piano and enjoyed a brief stint in rockstardom while playing bass guitar in 2008 for the band, Short People Riding Horses. Beyond music, Jingyi enjoys biology, 19th and early 20th century literature, biking, art history, and playing Spongebob’s Flip or Flop. She would like to thank her friends, her family, the Williams College music department and most especially, Mr. Floyd Hebert for making tonight possible.

Madura Watanagase began playing piano at age four. A native of Bangkok, Thailand, Madura has studied with some of Thailand’s most prominent pianists, including Nat Yontararak and Dr. Narongrit Dhammabutra, both winners of the prestigious Silpathorn Award which honors outstanding Thai contemporary artists. In high school, Madura took up composition and produced two orchestral pieces, both premiered by the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra in 2007 and 2008, respectively. A performance of her first orchestral composition, “The Journey”, was graciously presided over by H.R.H Princess Chulabhorn Walailak, during her visit to Madura’s high school. Madura was a semi-finalist in the 2007 Thailand Young Musician Award Competition. At Williams, she is an Economics major and currently studies piano under Elizabeth Wright. Other than playing the piano, Madura also enjoys singing, dancing, cooking, traveling and eating.

Jacob Walls is a senior from Forest Grove, Oregon studying music and philosophy at Williams College. His compositions have been premiered by campus groups such as the Opus Zero Band and the Brass Ensemble, and he has produced concerts as part of the I/O New Music and Winterstock Art Festivals. Passionate Armistice is his first composition for orchestra. Also active as a conductor, trumpeter, and pianist, Jacob led the Williams Student Symphony in performances of Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks Concerto and Reich’s Triple Quartet, and will be attending the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival in July. Next year Jacob plans to study for a Master’s in Music Composition. At the moment, he is putting a few of Messiaen’s early piano preludes under his fingers and spending time with the catalogs of Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Charles Mingus, Sonic Youth, and David Foster Wallace. He will be giving a senior recital of compositions for chamber ensembles on May 9, 2011 at 4:15 p.m. in Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall.

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