October 3, 2005
Maryland Symphony Orchestra Opens MasterWorks Series With Guest Artist Rachel Barton Pine

HAGERSTOWN, MD - - - The Maryland Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Elizabeth Schulze open the 24th season on October 15 at 8 pm and October 16 at 3 pm at the historic Maryland Theater in downtown Hagerstown, Maryland. Violinist Rachel Barton-Pine will perform Dvorak’s lovely Violin Concerto, followed by Brahms magnificent Symphony Number 4. The concert is the first of five MasterWorks Series performances during the Maryland Symphony Orchestra’s “Vintage” season, which features timeless masterpieces performed by today’s rising stars.

American violinist Rachel Barton Pine has received worldwide acclaim for her profound and thoughtful interpretations delivered with tremendous enthusiasm and intensity, which she applies to an extremely diverse repertoire. Of a recent performance, the Chicago Tribune noted that “Few can play as beautifully as Barton … the commanding ease at which she applied fingers and horsehair to the breathless roulades and passage work was enough to put the crowd in her thrall, as if they weren’t fans already.”

Ms. Pine has appeared as soloist with many of the world’s most prestigious ensembles, including the Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, St. Louis, Dallas and Baltimore Symphonies, Buffalo, Illinois and Rochester Philharmonics and Louisville Orchestra.

Her international performances have included the Montreal, Vienna, New Zealand, Iceland and Budapest Symphonies, Belgian National Orchestra, and the Mozarteum Chamber Orchestra. She was the first American and youngest person to ever win a gold medal at the J.S. Bach International Violin Competition in Leipzig, Germany. Other top awards came from the Queen Elisabeth (Brussels, 1993), Kreisler (Vienna, 1992), Szigeti (Budapest, 1992) and Montreal (1991) International Violin Competitions, and the Paganini International Violin Competition (Genoa, 1993.)

In January 2005, WFMT, Chicago, broadcast three live performances of Beethoven’s complete works for violin and piano with Ms. Pine and longtime collaborator, Matthew Hagle. She was recently featured on Minnesota Public Radio’s Saint Paul Sunday Morning, and has also appeared several times recently on National Public Radio’s Performance Today. In 1996 Chicago magazine selected Ms. Pine as a “Chicagoan of the Year” and Today’s Chicago Woman magazine selected her as a “Woman of the Year.” She was featured on CBS Sunday Morning and has twice appeared on NBC’s Today.

Scottish Fantasies, Ms. Pine’s seventh album for Cedille Records, was released in June, 2005. Her recording of Brahms and Joachim Concertos, in collaboration with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and conductor Carlos Kalmar, was nominated for a 2004 GRAMMY Award as “Best Engineered Album, Classical.”

Ms. Pine is President of the Rachel Elizabeth Barton Foundation, which assists young artists through various projects including instrument loans education grants. The Music Institute of Chicago recently named the “Rachel Barton Violin Chair” in her honor. She has been an instructor at Mark O’Connor’s Fiddle Camp since 1997, and in 2004 was named Artistic Director of the Musicorda Summer Music Festival in Massachusetts.

Concert sponsors are Albright, Crumbaker, Moul & Itell, LLP. Mr. & Mrs. Robert E. Ernst, II, Ferris, Baker Watts, Inc., Mr. & Mrs. Howard S. Kaylor, Marshfield Associates,
Miller, Oliver, Baker, Moylan & Stone, Cinda & Spence Perry, and Sycamore.US.

Tickets for this MasterWorks concert range from $20 to $72 for adults and $10 to $36 for full time students and children 12 and under, and can be purchased at the MSO Box Office located at 13 S. Potomac Street in Hagerstown, Maryland, or by calling 301-797-4000. Season subscriptions are also available.

Led by Music Director and Conductor Elizabeth Schulze, the Maryland Symphony Orchestra 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.