April 12, 2006
The Maryland Symphony Orchestra Ends its Vintage Concert Season with a Sparkling Season Finale

HAGERSTOWN, MD – The Maryland Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Elizabeth Schulze bring the Vintage Concert Season to a close with A Sparkling Season Finale on April 22 at 8 pm and April 23 at 3 pm, at the historic Maryland Theatre in downtown Hagerstown. The fifth and final MasterWorks concert of the season features violinist Jennifer Frautshci in a performance of Saint Saen’s Violin Concerto No. 3. The concert also includes Harbison’s Remembering Gatsby: Foxtrot for Orchestra and Segei Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances.

A pre-concert wine-tasting will be held at Cloak & Cupboard Antiques, Public Square, Hagerstown, from 6 to 7:30 pm on April 22. Free to MasterWorks V ticket-holders, the event will feature more than a dozen wonderful wines, courtesy of Gordon’s Grocery. The Featured wines will be available for purchase, with proceeds benefiting the MSO. Wine-tasting reservations can be made by calling the MSO office at 301-797-4000.

Avery Fischer Career Grant Recipient violinist Jennifer Frautschi is rapidly gaining acclaim as an adventurous performer with a wide-ranging repertoire. The Chicago Tribune writes, “The young violinist Jennifer Frautschi is molding a career with smart interpretations of both warhorses and rarities”. Equally at home in the classic repertoire as well as twentieth and twenty-first century works, in the past few years alone she has performed the Britten Concerto, Poul Ruders’ Concerto No. 1, Steven Mackey’s Violin Sonata, and Mendelssohn’s rarely played d minor Concerto, along with standards such as the Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Berg Concerti.

Highlights of the 05-06 season include her return to the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia with Ignat Solzhenitsyn conducting the Schumann Concerto at the Kimmel Performing Arts Center, and performances of the Stravinsky Concerto with the Louisville Orchestra and Bernstein Serenade with the San Diego Symphony. In the summer of 2005, she made her debut with the Cincinnati Symphony at Riverbend, performed with Andre Watts at Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon, and appeared at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival and Caramoor. Ms. Frautschi's recent seasons have included performances with Pierre Boulez and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony, and Christoph Eschenbach and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival. She has also performed during opening nights at the Caramoor International Festival, with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, and Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival, with the Mostly Mozart Orchestra.

Selected by Carnegie Hall for its Distinctive Debuts series, she made her New York recital debut in April 2004. As part of the European Concert Hall Organization's Rising Stars series, Ms. Frautschi made debuts at ten of Europe's most celebrated concert venues, including London's Wigmore Hall, Salzburg Mozarteum, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Vienna Konzerthaus, and La Cité de la Musique in Paris. She has also been heard in recital at the Ravinia Festival, La Jolla Chamber Music Society, Washington's Phillips Collection, Boston’s Gardner Museum, Beijing's Imperial Garden, Monnaie Opera in Brussels, La Chaux des Fonds in Switzerland, and San Miguel de Allende Festival in Mexico.

Formerly a member of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Two, Ms. Frautschi returns this season as chamber artist to the Chamber Music Society, Miller Theater and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Charlottesville Chamber

Music Festival in Virginia, La Musica in Sarasota, (Florida), and the Caramoor International Music Festival, where she has performed annually since André Previn first invited her there as a "Rising Star" in 1992. She has also appeared at such chamber music festivals as Seattle, Moab (Utah), Spoleto (Italy), Piccolo Spoleto (South Carolina), Summerfest La Jolla, Santa Fe, Tucson Winter, and St. Barth's (French West Indies). She has premiered important new works by Oliver Knussen, Krzystof Penderecki, Michael Hersch, and others, and has appeared at New York's George Crumb Festival and Stefan Wolpe Centenary Concerts.

Her growing discography includes three widely praised CDs for Artek -- her debut in works by Stravinsky and Ravel, a 20th century recital of solo works by Ysaÿe, Bartok, Davidovsky, and Harbison, and her first orchestral album featuring both Prokofiev concerti with Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony. She can also be heard on the recent release of Schoenberg’s Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra and works of Webern conducted by the legendary Robert Craft on the Naxos label.

Silver concert sponsors Mr. & Mrs. John F. Erath and Jim & Georgia Pierne’. Additional sponsorship is provided by Mr. & Mrs. Michael G. Day. Tickets for “A Sparkling Season Finale” are available at the MSO Box Office located at 13 S. Potomac Street in Hagerstown, Maryland, or by calling 301-797-4000. Ticket holders are invited to join Music Director Elizabeth Schulze for “Prelude,” a free half-hour discussion of the featured works and composers, which begins one hour prior to the concert.

Led by Music Director and Conductor Elizabeth Schulze, the Maryland Symphony Orchestra, now in its 24th season, is the area’s premiere professional orchestra, dedicated to providing musical performances and programs that educate and entertain while enhancing the cultural environment of Western Maryland and the surrounding region.