COURTESY
LEBANON — The Upper Valley Chamber Orchestra will perform a concert of diverse orchestral music in a family-friendly atmosphere on Sunday, April 7 at the Lebanon Opera House. Performers from throughout the Upper Valley come together to perform Beethoven’s 2nd Symphony and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4. Also on the program, Alexander Borodin’s tone poem In the Steppes of Central Asia and Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, written in 1942. This non-auditioned orchestra, a program of the Upper Valley Music Center, features musicians from throughout the Upper Valley, from Windsor to Hillsborough, Meriden to Montpelier. Members include professional and amateur musicians, UVMC faculty, doctors, engineers, students, and retired community members.
UVMC’s youth ensemble Vivace Orchestra, also conducted by Mark Nelson, will open the concert. Their selections include an original piece entitled “Ice” by Vivace violinist Oliver Andrews, age 12.
Following in the footsteps of UVMC’s community chorus, the community orchestra is performing for the first time in Lebanon Opera House. The relationship between the two organizations has strengthened since UVMC moved to Colburn Park in September 2017. The two organization share a focus on developing downtown Lebanon as a cultural arts district, and this partnership has made it possible for UVMC’s adult ensembles to join the many Upper Valley residents who see Lebanon Opera House as their performance home.
The Upper Valley Music Center is a non-profit community music school based in Lebanon, NH, serving more than 1,000 students a year from across the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire. UVMC’s expert faculty work with beginning through advanced students and teach programs designed for ages birth through adulthood. Founded in 1995, UVMC’s programs have expanded to include early childhood music, Suzuki and traditional lessons on a variety of instruments, group classes, and ensemble opportunities. UVMC hosts more than 50 student, faculty, and guest artist performances throughout the year, offers music camps during the summer, and sponsors the Upper Valley Chamber Orchestra and the Juneberry Community Chorus. For more information about UVMC visit www.uvmusic.org or call (603) 448-1642.
A multifaceted musician with wide-ranging musical interests, Mark Nelson has over 30 years’ experience conducting instrumental and choral ensembles in schools, colleges, and communities. He developed the instrumental-music program at Lake Forest College, led brass, chamber, and new-music ensembles at Wabash College, directed the orchestra at the Webb Schools, and conducted performances of Company, Les Misérables, The Threepenny Opera, and Working at various sites. He has launched electronic-music programs at two colleges and three independent secondary schools. With degrees from Yale (B.A.), Princeton (Ph.D.), and Harvard (Ed.M.), and having undertaken additional graduate study of Javanese gamelan and South Indian classical music at Wesleyan, he is deeply committed to promoting among ensemble members, audiences, and students of music theory, composition, and history the joys of musical discovery.
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