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SUNY Fredonia College Symphony Orchestra Concert
Dr. David Rudge, director
With guest Hung-Kuan Chen, piano
Saturday, March 6, 8 p.m.
King Concert Hall
Free and open to the public
The SUNY Fredonia College Symphony Orchestra opens its spring season with Brahms’ dramatic Piano Concerto No. 1 featuring guest soloist Hung-Kuan Chen of the Shanghai Conservatory.
The program concludes with the powerful Fifth Symphony of Prokofiev. One of the premiere ensembles in the School of Music, the College Symphony has approximately 90 members and presents masterworks from all periods of music.
Biographies:
Hung-Kuan Chen is one of the great personalities of the music world: enigmatic, brilliant and versatile. He is a pianist of uncompromising individuality and a remarkably inspiring pedagogue. Born in Taipei and raised in Germany, Mr. Chen’s early studies fostered strong roots in Germanic Classicism which he tempered with the sensibility of Chinese philosophy: The result is a dynamic and imaginative artistry. Furthermore, he is regarded as an extraordinary interpreter of Beethoven’s music.
One of the most decorated pianists of his generation, Mr. Chen won the Gold Medal in the Arthur Rubinstein competition, and was awarded a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1991. He also won top prizes in the the Busoni and the Geza Anda International Piano Competitions, along with prizes in the Queen Elisabeth, Montreal, Van Cliburn, and Chopin International Competitions, and toured under the auspices of Young Concert Artists.
Mr. Chen is Chair of the Piano Department of the Shanghai Conservatory and is the Director of the International Piano Academy in Shanghai. Prior to this he joined the faculty of Boston University, New England Conservatory Preparatory and was a Distinguished Artist in Residence at Mount Royal Conservatory in Canada. Mr. Chen has adjudicated international piano competitions and has taught and performed in the annual music festival for the Foundation of Chinese Performing Arts in Boston since 1993.
David Rudge
Dr. David Rudge, Director of Orchestral Activities, conductor of Opera at the State University of New York at Fredonia, and Music Director of the Orchard Park Symphony Orchestra, has conducted orchestras on five continents to rave reviews. As Director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Guatemala he was credited with the dramatic rebirth of that orchestra. Described as "dynamic" and "electric," Guatemala's Prensa Libre wrote "it has been many years since we have heard a symphony orchestra play with such inspiration." Dr. Rudge founded the Eastminster Chamber Orchestra, and was Assistant Conductor of the University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra, the Columbia Lyric Opera and Ballet, and the South Carolina Philharmonic. During that time he was noted for his "Bernstein-like intensity" The State, Columbia, SC. He was chosen several times to prepare the Beethoven Chamber Orchestra for the International Workshop for Conductors in ZlÌn, Czech Republic. He has guest conducted the West Bohemian Symphony Orchestra in Mariánské Lázne, CR, and, as a two time winner of the International Opera Conductors' Competition, he was invited to conduct a complete production of Rigoletto at the Silesian State Opera in the Czech Republic, and to lead the Vratza Philharmonic in Bulgaria. In 1996, as an Artistic Ambassador for the State Department, he spent two months in Damascus, Syria conducting the National Symphony and Chamber Orchestra. He has conducted the Opera and Orchestra at the Rome Festival, Italy, and has guest conducted the Dialecto Urbano Chorus, Caracas, Venezuela, the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, with Jean-Luc Ponty as soloist, the Western New York Chamber Orchestra, and the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra.
For a complete listing of upcoming events, visit www.fredonia.edu/music
