All-Russian orchestral program features student violin soloist
Photo: (From the top) Anthony Princiotti conducts the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra; violin soloist Alexander Styk.
HANOVER, NH—The Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra explores the breadth of Russian orchestral music on Saturday, March 1, in a program of Stravinsky, Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky that features a Dartmouth senior playing a virtuosic violin solo. The concert takes place at 8 pm in the Hop's Spaulding Auditorium. Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for youth and $5 for Dartmouth students.
The program presents Stravinsky’s L'oiseau de feu (The Firebird) Concert Suite for Orchestra No.2 (1919), with exotic chromaticism and imaginative orchestration; Mussorgsky’s majestic Pictures at an Exhibition, written in 1874 as a piano suite and orchestrated by Ravel 48 years later; and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35 (1878), one of the most loved violin concertos ever written, going from lyrical syncopation, to a Slavic-inflected second movement, to scintillating, fingers-on-fire finale. Alexander Styk '14 plays the virtuosic solo.
Styk, an Economics major who plans to join a Boston financial consulting firm upon graduation this spring, began violin at age 4. A native of the Rochester, NY, area, he studied through grade school and high school with teachers at Rochester's Hochstein School of Music & Dance and world-famous Eastman School of Music. He placed first in a number of solo competitions in the Rochester area, including the Rochester Philharmonic League Young Artist Competition, the Geneseo Young Artist Competition, and the David Hochstein Recital Competition, featuring a live broadcast of the final performance on WXXI Public Radio. Other notable achievements include placing third in the national finals of the Canadian Music Competition, 16-year-old category; a television highlight with the Scholastic Arts Spotlight on Rochester-area television; and a solo performance with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
At Dartmouth, he has studied with DSO conductor Anthony Princiotti, who is a concert violinist; and he has played with the DSO as first violinist since his freshman year. To be selected to play the concerto with the DSO, he auditioned last spring for Princiotti.
Along with conducting the DSO, Princiottiis the Music Director of the New Hampshire Philharmonic Orchestra and the Principal Guest Conductor of the Vermont Symphony. He received his Doctor of Music degree from the Yale School of Music and a Bachelor of Music degree from the Juilliard School. He was awarded a conducting fellowship at Tanglewood, where he studied with Leonard Bernstein, Gustav Meier and Seiji Ozawa. He has been a recipient of the Marshall Bartholomew Scholarship, the Charles Ives Scholarship and the Yale School of Music Alumni Association Prize. Between 1981 and 1987, he was first violinist with the Apple Hill Chamber Players and has appeared as a guest conductor with the Calgary Philharmonic, Vermont Symphony, New England String Ensemble, Hartford Symphony, San Paolo State Symphony, Yale Philharmonic, Norfolk Festival Orchestra, Pioneer Valley Symphony and the Young Artists Philharmonic. As a member of the faculty of Dartmouth College since 1992, he holds the rank of Senior Lecturer in Music. His recording of Telemann’s Twelve Fantasias for Unaccompanied Violin was recently released. He is the author of more than eighty articles about orchestral music.
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Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra in concert
The DSO explores the breadth of Russian orchestral music with Stravinsky’s Suite from The Firebird (1919), with exotic chromaticism and imaginative orchestration; Mussorgsky/Ravel’s majestic Pictures at an Exhibition, written in 1874 as a piano suite and orchestrated by Ravel 48 years later; and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 (1878), with violinist Alexander Styk ‘14. One of the most loved violin concertos ever written, the work goes from lyrical syncopation, to a Slavic-inflected second movement, to scintillating, fingers-on-fire finale.Anthony Princiotti, conductor.
Saturday, Mar 1, 8 pm
Spaulding Auditorium, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Hanover NH
$15, $10 youth, $5 Dartmouth students
Information: hop.dartmouth.edu, 603.646.2422
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Founded in 1962, the Hopkins Center for the Arts is a multi-disciplinary academic, visual and performing arts center dedicated to uncovering insights, igniting passions, and nurturing talents to help Dartmouth and the surrounding Upper Valley community engage imaginatively and contribute creatively to our world. Each year the Hop presents more than 300 live events and films by visiting artists as well as Dartmouth students and the Dartmouth community, and reaches more than 22,000 Upper Valley residents and students with outreach and arts education programs. After a celebratory 50th-anniversary season in 2012-13, the Hop enters its second half-century with renewed passion for mentoring young artists, supporting the development of new work, and providing a laboratory for participation and experimentation in the arts.
CONTACT:
Rebecca Bailey, Publicity Coordinator/Writer
Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College
603.646.3991