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SVCC and Knoxville Symphony Present Three
Premiere Performances
The curtain will open on Sunday, April 17
at the Festival of the Arts – SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICA and HER LEGACY!,
sponsored by Southwest Virginia Community College, at 4:00 p.m. at Tazewell
High School, with a concert including three premiere performances. The
Festival Fanfare performed by the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, Maestro
Cornelia Laemmli, conductor, will feature internationally acclaimed pianists
Pavlina Dokovska and Vladimir Valjarevic. Dynamic bass-baritone Michael
Rodgers will perform a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. with the SVCC
Community Chorus, director Joseph Trivette. Unique to an orchestral
performance will be renowned folk musician, Mike Seeger, performing with the
orchestra on the banjo, which originated in Africa.
The three premier performances include
Introduction and Montuno, composed by Dick Hyman, legendary jazz pianist
and composer. Hyman says “The rhythmic pattern is established by percussion
instruments as the piano and orchestra perform jazz-like phrases on top of
the highly syncopated rhythm patterns. The Introduction and
Montuno will be performed by Dokovska and Valjarevic on two pianos with
the orchestra. Hyman will be in the audience for this premier and will
perform a concert, History of Jazz Piano and Improvisation on American
Songbook, on Friday April 15 at 7:00 p.m. at SVCC.
The second premiere will be a folk song,
John Hardy, composer unknown, arranged in 1940 for orchestra and banjo
by Charles Seeger, father of Mike Seeger. It has been recorded in England
but never performed in the United States. A third premiere will be John
Hardy’s Dream, composed by Jonathan Romeo, SVCC’s June O. Shott
Artist-in-Residence, featuring Mike Seeger on the banjo with the orchestra.
Romeo’s piece is a tone poem – a story or event described in music,
specifically, the final moments of John Hardy’s life.
Ms. Dokovska, Artistic Director of the
Festival, is well known with Festival audiences as well as area piano
students and teachers. During the two-week Festival, Dokovska performs as
well as teaches private piano lessons to area students. A talented pianist
and gifted teacher, Dokovska is Chair of the Piano Department of the
prestigious Mannes College of Music in New York. She is receiving rave
reviews as Artistic Director of yearlong festivals sponsored by Mannes
College of Music around the city of New York. She also maintains a very busy
teaching and performing schedule.
Vladimir Valjarevic is also well known
during the festival for his numerous performances and as teacher to many
young piano students. He is currently a doctoral graduate student at Rutgers
University and has just organized a new chamber ensemble, Trio 56.
Mike Seeger, a gifted and versatile
traditional musician, is also a vocalist and performs on the banjo,
autoharp, guitar, fiddle, mandolin, jaw harp and French harp. He has
produced more than 65 recordings and tours throughout the United States,
Europe, Africa, New Zealand and Japan. Seeger has received six Grammy Award
nominations.
Michael Rodgers, bass-baritone, performs
in numerous operatic roles. He travels across the United States performing
sacred music concerts and has sung on three different occasions for the
President of the United States as well as for Heads of State.
Maestro Cornelia Laemmli is the Assistant
Conductor of the Knoxville Symphony. She has extensive experience in
conducting and in vocal performance. Laemmli studied at the Conservatory of
Winterthur and at the Conservatory and University of Zurich. She received
her Master’s Degree from Northwestern University School of Music.
Sponsors for the Knoxville Symphony
Orchestra concert are: Anonymous,
Katharine B. Tierney Foundation, Tazewell County Board
of Supervisors and Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National
Endowment for the Arts. Patrons are Tazewell Community College and Town of
Tazewell. Tickets are $5 adult and $3 students and may be purchased at the
door.
For Festival information, call Mary W.
Lawson, 276-964-7348 or visit the SVCC web site,
www.sw.edu
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2005
SVCC 
