West Virginia Symphony Orchestra Presents "Regally Romantic"

The West Virginia Symphony Orchestra will perform on the Fairmont State University and Pierpont Community & Technical College main campus in Fairmont at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 15, in Colebank Hall.

For tickets, call the Box Office at (304) 367-4240 or the Marion County Chamber of Commerce at (304) 363-0442. Parking will be available on the top deck of the parking garage. FSU and Pierpont are committed to making performances and facilities accessible to all patrons. Large print programs and other accommodations for those with disabilities are available.

The concert titled "Regally Romantic" will be under the direction of Grant Cooper, Artistic Director & Conductor of the WVSO. Pianist Jon Nakamatsu will be performing with the WVSO.

Featured pieces will be from the Romantic Era, the age during which the symphonic ensemble became firmly positioned in the mainstream of democratized concert music. The program will include Franz von Suppe's "Light Cavalry Overture" and Sergei Rachmaninov's "Variations of a Theme of Paganini in A Minor, Op. 43," as well as several selections by Anton Bruckner.

"We hear incredible variety in the three works on our program. All have a basic characteristic that they share - a clear evocation of human emotion - but, beyond this, their structures and time-scales are as different as one could imagine. Each is incredibly beautiful - in its own way.  Each is passionate - in its own way. And each composer uses the orchestra wonderfully - in his own way," Cooper said.

A native of California, Jon Nakamatsu came to international attention in 1997 when he was named Gold Medalist of the Tenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the only American to have achieved this distinction since 1981. Nakamatsu, who at the time was a high school German language teacher without formal conservatory training, seized the Van Cliburn jurors and audiences with the polish, musicality and technical brilliance of his playing-the result of many years of private piano study starting at the age of 6.

Since his dramatic Van Cliburn triumph, Nakamatsu's brilliant but unassuming musicianship and eclectic repertoire has made him a clear favorite on the concert circuit throughout the world. For 2008-09 he was guest soloist with the Santa Rosa (Calif.) Symphony Orchestra; North State (Calif.) Symphony, Rogue Valley (Ore.) Symphony; California Symphony Orchestra; Syracuse (N.Y.) Symphony Orchestra; Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra; Symphony Silicon Valley (Calif.); Roanoke (Va.) Symphony Orchestra; Austin (Texas) Symphony Orchestra; Boulder (Colo.) Philharmonic Orchestra; the Toledo (Ohio) Symphony; Vancouver Symphony Orchestra; and the San Jose (Calif.) Chamber Orchestra. 

Nakamatsu has performed widely in North America, Europe and the Far East and has been heard with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, the New World Symphony and the orchestras of Cincinnati, Dallas, Dayton, Detroit, Fort Worth, Honolulu, Milwaukee, New Mexico, Rochester, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Toledo and Utah. He has collaborated with such conductors as James Conlon, Leslie B. Dunner, Neal Gittleman, Marek Janowski, Raymond Leppard, Jahja Ling, Keith Lockhart, David Lockington, Alfred Savia, Carl St. Clair, Hans Vonk and Samuel Wong. He also performed at a White House concert hosted by President and Mrs. Clinton. 

Jon Nakamatsu's extensive recital tours throughout the United States and Europe have featured debuts in New York City (Carnegie Hall), Washington, D.C. (Kennedy Center), Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Paris, London and Milan. He has worked with various chamber ensembles - among them the Brentano, Tokyo and Ying String Quartets - and was the recipient of the Steven De Groote Memorial Award for his semifinal round chamber music performances at the Cliburn competition. In the fall of 2000, he toured coast-to-coast with the Berlin Philharmonic Woodwind Quintet. According to The Washington Post's Joe Banno, reviewing Nakamatsu and the Quintet at the Kennedy Center: "Nakamatsu played this most Mozartean of Beethoven's works (Quintet for Piano and Winds) with a swaggering eloquence and finely sculpted phrasing... Poulenc's spicily engaging Sextet for Piano and Wind Quintet prompted brash, razor-sharp virtuosity from Nakamatsu and the Berliners." 

Named "Debut Artist of the Year" (1998) by NPR's "Performance Today," Jon Nakamatsu has been profiled by "CBS Sunday Morning" and Reader's Digest magazine and is featured in "Playing with Fire," a documentary about the Tenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, broadcast nationwide on PBS. Earlier, in 1995, he was named the First Prize winner of Miami's Fifth United States Chopin Piano Competition. 

An active recording artist, Nakamatsu records exclusively for harmonia mundi usa, which has released nine CDs, the most recent of which features Nakamatsu and clarinetist Jon Manasse performing Brahms's sonatas for clarinet and piano. James Oestreich of The New York Times praised Manasse for his "deft technique, exquisite sensitivity and smooth, flowing tone" and asserts that Nakamatsu's performance is "as meltingly beautiful as Mr. Manasse's ... playful, sturdy or pushy, as appropriate."

Nakamatsu's recent all-Gershwin recording with the Rochester Philharmonic featuring "Rhapsody in Blue" and the Concerto in F rose to number three on Billboard's classical music charts, receiving extraordinary critical praise. Other acclaimed releases include an all-Liszt disc featuring the "Dante Sonata"; a recording of Brahms's Piano Sonata in F Minor and other solo works by the composer; piano sonatas by Joseph Wölfl, an unjustly neglected contemporary of Beethoven's who rivaled that master as a piano virtuoso; Lukas Foss's First Piano Concerto; Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 and his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini; a disk of solo works by Chopin, and selections performed by Nakamatsu during his victory at the Van Cliburn competition.                 

Jon Nakamatsu has studied privately with Marina Derryberry since the age of 6, and has worked with Karl Ulrich Schnabel, son of the great pianist Artur Schnabel. He has also studied composition and orchestration with Dr. Leonard Stein of the Schoenberg Institute at the University of Southern California, and pursued extensive studies in chamber music and musicology. Nakamatsu is a graduate of Stanford University with a bachelor's degree in German Studies and a master's degree in Education.

Grant Cooper, Artistic Director and Conductor of the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, officially began his duties as the ninth conductor in the WVSO's history on July 1, 2001. From 1997-2007, Cooper served as Resident Conductor of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, where he gave almost 600 performances with that orchestra, appearing to critical acclaim on all the major series. Cooper is also Artistic Director of a summer festival, the Bach and Beyond Festival in Fredonia, N.Y.

Celebrating its 70^th anniversary, the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra is West Virginia's premier performing arts organization, presenting more than 50 concerts annually to audiences throughout the Mountain State. Programs include Symphonic, ZMM Pops and City National Bank Family Concert Series, performances by the Montclaire String Quartet, collaborations with the Charleston Ballet and other state arts organizations and a national award-winning education program. The Symphony's home is the world-class Maier Foundation Performance Hall at the Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences in Charleston. 

 

Jon Nakamatsu