October 2 , 2006
The Maryland Symphony Orchestra’s MasterWorks I Concert Heralds the Beginning of a Year-Long Silver Celebration

HAGERSTOWN, MD - - The Maryland Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Elizabeth Schulze kick off their 2006-2007 Masterworks Series on October 14 and 15, 2006 with a Silver Celebration concert at the Maryland Theatre in downtown Hagerstown, featuring the return of violinist Nicolas Kendall. Kendall’s crowd-pleasing March, 2004 appearance with the MSO was one of the highlights of that season, and anticipation is high that his upcoming performance of Jean Sibelius’ virtuosic Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47, will once again provide an audience experience not to be missed. Also featured on the program are the exultant Festive Overture, Op. 96 by Dmitri Shostokovich, and one of Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s most popular works, the lovely Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64. The first MasterWorks concert of the 25th Anniversary Season, the program will also be performed at the Pealer Recital Hall at Frostburg State University on Friday evening, October 12. Tickets for that concert are available through the Frostburg University Cultural Events Box Office at (301) 687-3137.

“A violinist clearly poised for a substantial career” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), Nicolas Kendall is increasingly recognized for the combination of technique and passion he brings to his performances. A year 2000 winner of Astral Artistic Services’ National Auditions, he was featured on the “Rising Stars” series at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. Astral also presented his acclaimed Philadelphia recital debut. He has also appeared as a member of the Astral Trio at both the Los Angeles Chamber Music Festival and in Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center. In 2002 Mr. Kendall won First Prize at the Young Concerts Artists (YCA) International Auditions, which led to a New York recital debut at the 92nd Street Y, as well as an appearance as part of YCA’s concert series in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. A native of Washington, D.C., Mr. Kendall was just 17 years old when he won the National Symphony Orchestra’s Young Artist Competition in 1995. Just one year later he was a featured guest soloist with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.

Mr. Kendall’s passion for bringing together music of all styles and genres prompted him to create the string trio Time for Three, hailed by Sir Simon Rattle as “monsters of ability and technique, conveyors of an infectious joy.” Time for Three tours the U.S. performing repertoire that incorporates bluegrass, Hungarian gypsy, jazz, country-western, classical, and improvisatory music. Nick Kendall is also co-founder of the Dryden String Quartet and the East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ecco).

Hailing from a musical family, Mr. Kendall began playing the violin at age three. His grandfather John Kendall was the first string teacher in the U.S. to pioneer the Suzuki teaching method. Nick Kendall participates in numerous outreach activities nationwide, and conducts popular masterclasses and workshops. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music where he studied with Victor Danchenko, he is a recipient of a 2005 Career Advancement Award from the Musical Fund Society. He also received a fellowship from the Independence Foundation and a grant in support of his musical career from the Presser Foundation.

Mr. Kendall joins the MSO to perform Sibelius’ Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 4, regarded as on of the world’s most important concerts. Sibelius wrote the Violin Concerto as a testimony to his failed ambition to become a violinist, pouring into it every known technical difficulty and then some. Composed on a commission in 1903, it was not well-received at its initial premier. Thoroughly revised in 1905, it premiered again in Berlin with violinist Karl Halir and conductor Richard Strauss. Violinists and audiences have loved the Concerto from the start, especially its Gypsy-like warmth.

Silver Sponsors for the October 14 and 15 concerts are Dr. & Mrs. Robert K. Hobbs, Jim & Georgia Pierné, and Past, Present & Future MSO Board Presidents: April L. Dowler, Brendan D. Fitzsimmons, Donald R. Harsh, Jr., Marjorie M. Hobbs, Alan J. Noia, James G. Pierné, William J. Reuter, and Joel M. Rosenthal, M.D., and Past, Present & Future MSO Guild Presidents: Deborah Bockrath, Deborah D. Boone, Judy Ditto, Frederica Erath, Barbara K. Henderson, Marjorie M. Hobbs, Linda M. Hood, Margaret Hall Hornbaker, Doris E. Lehman, Georgia Pierné, Brenda Rosenthal, Agnes M. Supernavage, Marty Talton, and Christine Tischer.

Additional concert sponsors include Albright Crumbacker Moul & Itell, LLP, April L. Dowler & John W. League, Mr. & Mrs. Robert E. Ernst, II, Mr. & Mrs. Brendan D. Fitzsimmons, Mr. & Mrs. Howard S. Kaylor, Miller, Oliver, Baker, Moylan & Stone, and Spence & Cinda Perry. The Maryland Symphony Orchestra is also supported by a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of Maryland and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Subscriptions and single tickets for all 25th Anniversary Season performances are available at the MSO Box Office at 13 South Potomac Street, Hagerstown, or at 301-797-4000. The Maryland Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Elizabeth Schulze, 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 Quad-state region.