The Londontowne Symphony Orchestra will bring the Arundel Vocal Arts Society and the winners of the state-wide Young Artist Competition together into a powerful concert on Saturday, January 27, at 7:30pm at Heritage Baptist Church, 1740 Forest Drive in Annapolis.
The orchestra, under the direction of Anna Binneweg, will lead off the concert with Beethoven’s Overture to Leonore No.3, and then bring on the Rising Stars – Luka Stefanovic, Lydia Doughty and Sean Kim. These are exceptional Maryland high school student musicians who won the state-wide Young Artist Competition last November, and each will be featured with the orchestra in a movement from a concerto of their choice. Luka Stefanovic, cellist, will play the first movement of Dvorak’s Cello Concerto, Lydia Doughty, horn, will play the first movement of Mozart’s Horn Concerto No 1, and Sean Kim, cello, will play the third movement of Saint-Saens’ Cello Concerto No. 1. This marks the fifth year in a row that the LSO has reached out and promoted music and musicians in our schools with its “Rising Stars” concerts.
Following the intermission, AVAS will take the stage and add their inspirational music to the concert. Under the direction of JoAnn Kulesza, the orchestra and chorus will perform Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Copland’s Canticle of Freedom.
Luka Stefanovic is a senior at the Baltimore School for the Arts and studies with Dr. Daniel Levitov through the Peabody Preparatory. He joined the Peabody Youth Orchestra in 2013 and was named Principal Cello in the fall of 2016. As a student at the Baltimore School for the Arts, he frequently performs as principal cello with its various ensembles.
Lydia Doughty is a sophomore at Arundel High School, and studies horn under Doug Quinzi who plays with the US Marine Band. She has been playing French Horn for nearly five years and has taken private lessons for more than four years. She is a two-time recipient of the Anne Arundel County Music Camp’s Bill Blanchard award, and was also awarded the Bates Middle School Performing and Visual Arts Band “achievement of excellence.”
Sean Kim is in the ninth Grade at Centennial High School in Ellicott City. He studies cello under Alicia Ward at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. He made his orchestral debut as a soloist at the age of thirteen with the Maryland Columbia Orchestra. He has won first place in many prestigious competitions such as the International Concerto Competition at the American Fine Arts Festival in New York City, American Protégé International Concerto Competition, Columbia Orchestra Young Artist Competition, Maryland State Music Teachers Association Violin Competition, and State Alternate winner of the Music Teacher National Association Competition.
AVAS is a community-based, nonprofit choral group dedicated to the performance of varied, mixed-voice music for the benefit, education, and enjoyment of its members and the surrounding communities. AVAS has been providing outstanding performances of diverse choral music since 1983. They pride themselves in the diversity of their programming, including classical masterworks, operetta, pops, folk music, lighter favorites and Broadway.
JoAnn Kulesza is the Music Director and Interim Chair of the Opera Department at the Peabody Conservatory and began her career at the Hochschule Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, as coach/accompanist in opera and Lied. Professionally, she has worked as rehearsal accompanist, chorus master and assistant conductor for the Washington National Opera, Wolf Trap Opera Company, Baltimore Opera Young Artist Program, Chicago Symphony Chorus, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Compania Lirica Nacional (Costa Rica), and the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists. She has also assisted Maestro Loren Maazel for two of his Chateauville Chamber Opera Projects.
Anna Binneweg is the Music Director/Conductor of the Anne Arundel Community College Symphony Orchestra where she also serves as Associate Professor of Music in addition to being the Music Director/Conductor of the LSO. She holds a doctor of music degree in orchestral conducting from Northwestern University. She made her conducting debut at the Kennedy Center with the National Symphony Orchestra in the 2005 National Conducting Institute, and has served as one of their cover conductors. She made her European conducting debut in Lviv, Ukraine in 2012.
The LSO is central Maryland’s community orchestra made up of local professionals, teachers, military musicians, exceptional amateurs and students. They play for the love of making high-quality music for themselves and for their listeners, and they have the development of young musicians as part of their mission.
Tickets are available at www.lso-music.org, at (410) 562-8920 or at the door. General admission tickets are $20, seniors are $15 and students are FREE.
