Heights Chamber Orchestra Orchestra

Newly appointed, Music Director Travis Jürgens serves as Director of Music Ministry at Saint Ambrose Catholic Parish and as Music Director of the fully professional Perrysburg Symphony Orchestra. He won 2nd Prize and the President of the Jury Award at the 2019 Bucharest Music Institute International Conducting Competition. He has collaborated with esteemed conductors, including Michael Tilson Thomas and Marin Alsop. He has been praised as “a superior conductor” and “well on his way to becoming a major conductor in the world of symphony orchestras” (Opus Colorado). Anna Audenis began playing the piano at age five and has since charmed audiences and judges alike with her thoughtful and musical interpretations. Anna has been invited as a guest artist to perform a solo recital at the Ayvalık International Music Academy in Turkey, Classical Music Encounters of Orange County in California, and TEDx Ostrava in the Czech Republic. Anna is a top prizewinner of numerous national and international piano competitions and has performed with many symphony orchestras. Anna has been fortunate to have studied with Rufus Choi for 7.5 years and is currently studying under the tutelage of Antonio Pompa-Baldi at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Anna speaks French and Czech fluently and in her free time enjoys reading classics and studying theology. Ludwig van Beethoven – Piano Concerto No. 3 The composer introduced his Concerto in C minor at a massive all-Beethoven benefit – with Beethoven as beneficiary – which continues to boggle the mind more than two centuries after the fact. The date was April 5, 1803, in the Theater an der Wien, the program offering three premieres including the Concerto. The score of the Concerto was not finished by the time of the rehearsal and indeed it remained a work in progress during the performance. According to Beethoven’s page-turner. “I saw empty pages with here and there what looked like Egyptian hieroglyphs, unintelligible to me, scribbled to serve as clues for him. He played most of his part from memory, since, obviously, he had put so little on paper. So, whenever he reached the end of some invisible passage, he gave me a surreptitious nod, and I turned the page. My anxiety not to miss such a nod amused him greatly and the recollection of it at our convivial dinner after the concert sent him into gales of laughter.” The C-minor Concerto had a second “premiere” in Vienna a year later, from the finished manuscript – presumably without hieroglyphs. César Franck – Symphony in D Minor When Nicholas-Joseph Franck arrived in Paris with his thirteen-year-old son César, it was with the hopes and dreams of a pushy stage father. César was only ten when he earned a first prize in piano at the Liège Conservatory. César enrolled at the Paris Conservatory, where he again won the premier prix in piano. However, by the age of twenty his career as a virtuoso was not going anywhere, so the Francks returned to their native Belgium. César eventually moved back to Paris, got married, supported himself by teaching private lessons, and worked as an organist at a small church. Nowadays, his fame rests on the music that he wrote during the last ten years of his life. The best known is his Symphony in D. The short melodic idea that begins the Symphony in D forms the basis for the entire work. Slow, dark, and foreboding, it is reminiscent of a similar theme used by Beethoven, Liszt, and Wagner to evoke the idea of “fate.” Franck’s Symphony in D Minor single-handedly brought symphonies by French composers back to concert halls. CONCERTS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. A free will offering is appreciated.

Event Links

Website: https://go.evvnt.com/3340567-0

Read More

View Less