FSUCO Presents Free April Concert

The Fairmont State University Community Orchestra will present a free concert in the Turley Center Ballroom at 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 9. The concert will feature two winners of the orchestra's concerto competition, held for Fairmont State music majors each year.

The orchestra, conducted by John Ashton, will open the program with Rossini's brilliant overture to the "Barber of Seville." Student soloists Angelle Raines and Rebecca Ashcraft will play Ernest Bloch's Suite Modale for Flute and Orchestra and Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 3.

Rebecca Ashcraft is the daughter of Nina Ashcraft of Shinnston, and the late Frederick Ashcraft. She is a senior Regents B.A. degree major at Fairmont State. She is a graduate of Lincoln High School and has studied horn with Bonnie Ashcraft and David Elliott. She attended Fairmont State College and the University of Kentucky and performed the FCCSO Concerto Concert in 1986. Ashcraft currently studies horn with John Ashton and music composition with John Schooley. She is a member of the FSUCO and the WVU Community Arts Orchestra, where she is principal horn. She also performs regularly with the Shinnston Community Band and Fairmont State Wind Ensemble. Ashcraft is a member of the Con SpiritoWoodwind Quintet and serves as Instrumental Music Director at Bible Baptist Temple in Stonewood. She is employed at McLaughlin & Carpenter, Attorneys-at-Law, as a paralegal.

Angelle Raines is a junior music education major at Fairmont State. In her hometown of Hundred, W.Va., she began playing the flute as a fifth-grade student under the direction of David Plyler. There she participated in solo and ensemble festivals, as well as All County Band and Region I Honor Band. She has participated in Fairmont State's Collegiate Singers, Chamber Choir, Percussion Ensemble, African Drum and Dance Ensemble and Marching Band, where she served as Drum Major in fall 2004. She is the secretary of Sigma Alpha Iota (Music Honorary), secretary of Kappa Kappa Psi (Band Honorary) and president of MENC (National Association of Music Education). She is currently a member of Collegiate Singers, flute ensemble, principal chair in the Fairmont State Wind Ensemble and studies flute with Dorothy Skidmore.

The concert will conclude with a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's magnificent Symphony No. 7 in A major.

Following the concert, a reception will be offered by the Friends of the Symphony to allow the audience to meet the soloists and members of the orchestra.