MASTERWORKS I:  HEROIC BEETHOVEN
Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 21, 2013
7:30 p.m. — Abi­lene Civic Cen­ter Auditorium

 

Fea­tur­ing the Crys­tal Award Win­ner of the 2013 Van Cliburn Inter­na­tional Piano Com­pe­ti­tion — Guest Artist to be announced

 

 

 

 

MASTERWORKS II: ENCHANTING DUO from a MOVIE MUSIC MASTER
Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 26, 2013
7:30 p.m. — Abi­lene Civic Cen­ter Auditorium

Maria Schle­un­ing has been vio­lin­ist for the Dallas-based con­tem­po­rary music ensem­ble Voices of Change since 1996, and was appointed Artis­tic Direc­tor in 2009. An advo­cate of new music, she has worked with many of the lead­ing com­posers of our day, and has pre­miered many new works, the most recent being “Dream Catcher”, a solo vio­lin work writ­ten espe­cially for her as a gift by Augusta Read Thomas. The world pre­miere per­for­mance was on May 3, 2009 in Dal­las, TX.
An active cham­ber musi­cian, Ms. Schle­un­ing has per­formed in venues such as New York’s Alice Tully Hall, Weill Hall, Merkin Hall, and the Museum of Mod­ern Art, as well as numer­ous fes­ti­vals through­out the United States and Europe. Since 1993 she has been a fac­ulty mem­ber at the Bow­doin Inter­na­tional Music Fes­ti­val in Maine, and has served in the same capac­ity at Idyll­wild Arts in Cal­i­for­nia since 2007. She has recorded with Con­tin­uum in New York, as well as in Dal­las with the Grammy-nominated Voices of Change, and the Walden Piano Quar­tet.
A mem­ber of the Dal­las Sym­phony since 1994, she has been fea­tured as soloist with the orches­tra on many occa­sions. Other solo high­lights include appear­ances with the Ore­gon Sym­phony, Seat­tle Sym­phony, and with the Greater Dal­las Youth Orches­tra on a tour of East­ern Europe includ­ing con­certs at the Gewand­haus in Leipzig and the Rudolfinum in Prague. She stud­ied with Josef Gin­gold at Indi­ana Uni­ver­sity, where she was awarded the pres­ti­gious Performer’s Cer­tifi­cate; with Yfrah Nea­man at the Guild­hall School in Lon­don, with a grant from the Myra Hess Foun­da­tion; and with Joel Smirnoff at the Juil­liard School, where she received her Master’s Degree.

 

Jolyon Pegis was born in Rochester, NY. He attended Indi­ana Uni­ver­sity and the Uni­ver­sity of Hart­ford study­ing with Gary Hoff­man and David Wells. Mr. Pegis is a win­ner of the Artists Inter­na­tional Awards in New York City. Jolyon has appeared as soloist with the Kingsport, Chau­tauqua, San Anto­nio, Virgir1ia, Maui, and Dal­las Sym­phony orches­tras. He made his offi­cial New York Recital Debut at Weill Recital Hall in 1990 and has also been a reg­u­lar per­former on the Fed­eral Hall Con­cert Series, Saint Paul Fes­ti­val of the Arts, and at Carnegie Hall. As a per­former of new music, Mr. Pegis has com­mis­sioned and pre­miered sev­eral works and has worked with such com­posers as Gun­ther Schuller, Lukas Foss, and Don Fre­und.
He is an advo­cate of the music of the late Eric Heckard and has pre­miered a num­ber of his works includ­ing his Con­certo for Cello and Cham­ber Orches­tra. Mr. Pegis has served on the fac­ul­ties of Atlantic Union Col­lege, the Hartt School of Music, and the D’Angelo School of Music at Mer­cy­hurst Col­lege. He was a mem­ber of the Arca­dia Trio in con­junc­tion with being a res­i­dent artist at the Yel­low Barn Music Fes­ti­val. From 1993–1995 he was the Music Direc­tor of the Jamestown Youth Orches­tra. Since 1993 he has served as Assis­tant Prin­ci­pal Cel­list of the Chau­tauqua Sym­phony and in 1995 joined the San Anto­nio Sym­phony as Prin­ci­pal Cello. He was a res­i­dent artist at both the Roy­croft Cham­ber Music Fes­ti­val in Buf­falo and the Anchor­age Fes­ti­val of the Arts. He is cur­rently a mem­ber of the Dal­las Sym­phony as well as being a mem­ber of the con­tem­po­rary ensem­ble “Voices of Change” and an adjunct fac­ulty mem­ber of SMU.

 

POPS I: HOLIDAY POPS with BEN UTECHT
Sat­ur­day, Decem­ber 7, 2013
3:00 PM Fam­ily Mati­nee - Abi­lene Civic Cen­ter Audi­to­rium
7:30 PM Evening Per­for­mance — Abi­lene Civic Cen­ter Auditorium

Ben­jamin Utecht spends every minute of every day mak­ing his dreams become a real­ity. The 31-year-old stud achieved football’s high­est honor when he and the rest of his team­mates on the 2006 Indi­anapo­lis Colts squad won Super Bowl XLI. But now, two sea­sons removed from his NFL career as a tight end, he is chas­ing after his orig­i­nal child­hood dream: becom­ing a suc­cess­ful artist in the music industry.

While it’s been dif­fi­cult for ath­letes to cross over into the music world, the truth is Utecht has been prepar­ing for this tran­si­tion for the past twenty years. Utecht’s vocal style brings a refresh­ing new voice and sound to a genre in need of a new male lead.

Now, Utecht is ready to share his inspired music and giant yet ten­der voice with the rest of the world. “I’ve been given an oppor­tu­nity to greatly impact people’s lives and the only way you can do that is through vul­ner­a­bil­ity. Reveal­ing your­self com­pletely and shar­ing your heart with peo­ple. I want peo­ple to truly expe­ri­ence my heart, to con­nect with them on an emo­tional level and sing songs about hope, love, and inspi­ra­tion, and write songs that encour­age and lift peo­ple up.”

 

 

MASTERWORKS III: MAD FOR MOZART
Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 25, 2014
7:30 PM — Abi­lene Civic Cen­ter Auditorium

 

Fea­tur­ing Halle Puck­ett, piano — First Prize Win­ner of the 2012 Young Artist Schol­ar­ship Competition

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POPS II: JAZZ NIGHT AT THE PHIL
Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 22, 2014
7:30 PM — Abi­lene Civic Cen­ter Auditorium

Richard DeRosa has toured and recorded with Gerry Mul­li­gan, Bob Brookmeyer, Susannah McCorkle, Jackie Cain & Roy Kral, Peter Nero, Chuck Wayne, and Mar­lene Ver Planck. Other per­for­mances with notable musi­cians include Mar­ian McPartland, Gene Bertoncini, War­ren Vache, Chris Con­nor, and Larry Elgart.  Mr. DeRosa has arranged and con­ducted music for Wyn­ton Marsalis and the Lin­coln Cen­ter Jazz Orches­tra to fea­ture Toots Thiele­mans, Annie Ross, Willie Nel­son, Norah Jones, Abbey Lin­coln, and Roberta Gam­barini among sev­eral other notable artists.

Mr. DeRosa’s com­po­si­tions for tele­vi­sion, film, and the­ater include back­ground music cues for Another World, As the World Turns, The Guid­ing Light, com­mer­cials for Telex, Bristol-Meyers, and Kodak, var­i­ous doc­u­men­taries broad­cast on PBS, orches­tra­tions for inde­pen­dent films Gray Mat­ters, East Broad­way, and Stan­dard Time, and orig­i­nal music scores for the national tour­ing U.S. the­ater com­pany Art­sPower as well as orches­tra­tions for Franken­stein, the Musi­cal.  Mr. DeRosa is an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­sity of North Texas where he is serv­ing as direc­tor of jazz composition/arranging stud­ies. His for­mer teach­ing posts were at William Pater­son Uni­ver­sity, Man­hat­tan School of Music, and The Juil­liard School where he taught advanced jazz arrang­ing for stu­dio orchestra.

 

SPECIAL CONCERT with KRISTEN HERTZENBERG
Fri­day, March 7, 2014
8:00 PM Per­for­mance — The His­toric Para­mount Theatre

She’s back!  Texas-born Broad­way star Kris­ten Hertzen­berg sings Coun­try, Gospel, Broad­way and Amer­i­can stan­dards with Mae­stro Itkin at the piano and jazz trio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MASTERWORKS IV:  CARMINA BURANA!
Sat­ur­day, April 12, 2014
7:30 PM — Abi­lene Civic Cen­ter Auditorium

Schu­bert Sym­phony No. 5
Orff Carmina Burana

Fea­tur­ing soloists Jen­nifer Youngs, soprano, Sam Cook, tenor, and Jef­frey Snider, bari­tione along with the Abi­lene Chris­t­ian Uni­ver­sity, Hardin-Simmons Uni­ver­sity and McMurry Uni­ver­sity choirs

 

POPS III: DISNEY IN CONCERT — A TALE AS OLD AS TIME
Sat­ur­day, May 3, 2014
7:30 PM — Abi­lene Civic Cen­ter Auditorium

Fea­tur­ing Cho­rus Abi­lene and guest vocalists

Expe­ri­ence the magic of Dis­ney, fea­tur­ing music and visu­als from your favoirite Dis­ney movies like, Beauty and the Beast, The Lit­tle Mer­maid, The Lion King, Aladdin and more!

Pre­sen­ta­tion licensed by Dis­ney Con­cert Library  © Disney