The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra will present a free concerto concert, open to the public, at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 12, in the UTC Fine Arts Center’s Roland Hayes Concert Hall.
The concert, which also will be available to watch via livestream (livestream.com/utc/events/10751049), will feature four student concerto winners.
“Our concerto concert is one of the most challenging yet enjoyable concerts each year,” UTC Symphony Orchestra conductor Sandy Morris says. “The orchestra members accompany their talented fellow students, who perform impressive solos that showcase their hard work and talent.”
The four featured UTC concerto students will include:
• Senior trumpeter Meaghan Hibbs, a graduate of Chattanooga High School Center for Creative Arts. Hibbs is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in humanities with a minor in music performance.
• Junior bassoonist Marlee Sanders, who hails from Bartlett High School in Memphis. Sanders is pursuing a biology degree with minors in music performance and chemistry.
• Junior percussionist Logan Brown, who attended North Sand Mountain High School in Higdon, Alabama. Brown is pursuing an instrumental music performance degree.
• Sophomore mezzo-soprano Paige Bush, a graduate of Arlington High School in Tennessee. Bush is a vocal music performance major.
“These students are talented, humble and work hard to perfect their performances,” Morris says. “I’ve enjoyed working with Meaghan, Marlee and Logan during their time in orchestra, and I’m looking forward to making great music with Paige – an accomplished singer.”
The works to be performed include:
• “Fantasy on Japanese Wood Prints” by Alan Hovhaness. This piece uses the full forces of the orchestra, Morris says, contrasting soft passages with xylophone solos, strings and woodwinds with loud rhythmic sections using percussion and brass.
• “Trumpet Concerto in E Flat Major, movement I” by Johann Hummel. Morris says this iconic 1803 concerto is on every trumpeter’s must learn list and is a delightful Classical period work.
• “Bassoon Concerto in F Major, movement III” by Carl Maria von Weber, a playful concerto movement composed near the beginning of the Romantic era of the 1800s.
• “Voi lo sapete, o mamma” from the opera “Cavalleria Rusticana” by Pietro Mascagni. Morris describes aria as the emotional cry of a woman to her lover’s mother because he seduced her as revenge.
The 50-member college orchestra includes university music majors and non-majors, UTC music faculty members, area music educators and other amateur and professional musicians from the region.
The UTC Fine Arts Center is located at the intersection of Dr. Roland Carter Street (formerly known as Vine Street) and Palmetto Street.
Source: UTC