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Aberdeen University/Civic Symphony Schedules Spring Concert
Released March 28, 2008
(ABERDEEN, SD) The Aberdeen University/Civic Symphony will present its spring concert on Sun, Apr. 6, at 4 p.m. on the main stage of the Johnson Fine Arts Center. The performance will feature the winners of the 2008 NSU Music Department Concerto/Aria Competition which was held in February. The concert will include the music of Handel, Brahms, Creston and Mozart. Dr. Robert Vodnoy, Director of Orchestra Activities/Assistant Professor of Strings at NSU, will conduct the orchestra. The program is free and open to the public.
The instrumental winner of this year’s competition is Keiko Muto. Keiko is a Music Education major for Kannami City, Shizuoka, Japan and is the daughter of Hisao and Noriko Muto. She has studied at NSU for five years and is the pupil of Dr. Terry Beckler. She is a member of Symphonic Band, the intercollegiate band, and has conducted NSU community band as a student conductor. Keiko says that her goal is “to become a band and percussion instructor back in my home country and help out smaller school bands that have never had professional direction.” She will perform the first movement of Paul Creston’s “Marimba Concerto” on the concerto.
Paul Creston was born Giuseppe Guttoveggio in 1906 in New York City. He died in California in 1995. Creston was a largely self-taught composer who composed over 120 works, among them six symphonies and concertos for many instruments, including this marimba concerto. He was a notable teacher, with the famed American composer John Corigliano among his students. His style is relatively conservative, basically tonal, with jazz influences in both melody and harmony. In the 1940s, he was the most frequently performed American composer.
The vocal winner of this year’s competition is Hatem Elgenedy, a baritone from Cairo, Egypt and the son of Mohamed Sayed Ahmed Elgenedy and Karima Abd El Samiaa. He is a freshman music major and a student of Dr. Raouf Zaidan. Hatem began studying voice at the Cairo Conservatory and has studied voice for nine years. At NSU, he sang the role of Thuy in the fall musical production of “Miss Saigon”. Hatem has sung professionally in the United States, Egypt and in Europe, and recently returned from Poland and Dubai where he sang in a production of “Don Giovanni” which also featured Dr. Zaidan. He appeared in a recent South Dakota Symphony production of “Tosca,” and has sung roles in “Pagliacci” and “La Traviata.” He won a scholarship from the famous baritone Tom Krause to study with him in Finland.
On the Spring Concert, Hatem will sing the “Count’s
Aria” from Mozart’s opera “The Marriage of Figaro.”
In this famous and dramatic recitative and aria, the Count realizes
that he has been duped by his servant Figaro and vows vengeance.
The orchestra will perform George Frideric Handel’s Water
Music arranged by Hamilton Harty, and the finale of Brahms’
“Symphony No. 1.”
About Northern State University
Northern State University is a premier residential institution characterized by outstanding instruction, extraordinary community relations, and unparalleled extracurricular opportunities. In August of 2007 NSU was named by US News and World Report as one of the best undergraduate public institutions in the Midwest. For more information about NSU, visit our Web site at www.northern.edu.
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