West Virginia Symphony Orchestra on Campus Feb. 27

Under the direction of Grant Cooper, Artistic Director and Conductor, the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra will perform at Fairmont State University at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 27, in Colebank Hall. The Orchestra will be performing Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, “Eroica” and Concerto for Violin in D Major. The concert will feature Korbinian Altenberger, violin.

Tickets are $30 for reserved seating, $20 for general admission, $10 for students and free for Fairmont State students. To order tickets, call (304) 367-4240. Parking for the event will be available on the top deck of the parking garage. FSU is committed to making performances and facilities accessible to all patrons. Large print programs and other accommodations are available.

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. In the spring of 2012, Cooper was honored by Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin as the recipient of a Governor’s Award for Distinguished Service in the Arts.

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.

The Philadelphia Inquirer says of violinist Korbinian Altenberger: “His ability to rise and fall on a single tone is breathtaking…His expressivity is singular.”

The native of Munich, Germany, was recently appointed Principal Second Violin of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, under Mariss Jansons. He has appeared as soloist in the U.S., Israel, Japan, South Africa, South America, New Zealand and throughout Europe. As the Second Prize winner of the eminent Montréal International Musical Competition in 2010, he was invited to perform in recital in the celebrated Maly Hall of the Moscow Conservatory of Music in 2010 and with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra in 2011.

Altenberger has been featured as soloist with the Auckland Philharmonia, Munich Philharmonic, Halle Philharmonic, Göttingen Symphony Orchestra, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, Kassel Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Costa Rica, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Elgin Symphony Orchestra, Massapequa Philharmonic Orchestra and Symphony in C. A soloist at the Salzburger Festspiele and Ticino Musica festivals; he has also appeared as soloist before the President of the Federal Republic of Germany. He gave his New York recital debut in Merkin Concert Hall in 2010, performing four of Beethoven’s ten violin sonatas, with pianist Andrius Zlabys. As an artist-in-residence at the State Orchestra of Eisenach, Germany, Altenberger was soloist during the orchestra’s 2006-2007 season. He is a member of the IRIS Chamber Orchestra in Memphis, and recently performed with New York’s Omega Ensemble, the Israeli Chamber Project, and with the Kuss Quartet in Israel and South America. In the 2011-2012 season, Altenberger appeared on Astral Artists’ series in its Philadelphia Brahms Festival, participated at the Shostakovich Festival in Dresden and taught master classes and gave chamber music performances in Japan. In the 2012-2013 season, he appeared in a chamber concert on Astral’s series as soloist in Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata and gave a recital for the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society with pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn.

A winner of Astral Artists’ 2005 National Auditions, Altenberger was also the recipient of the special prize for the best interpretation of the commissioned piece in Munich’s 2005 ARD Music Competition. He received First Prize and the Audience Choice award from the Jacob Stainer Violin Competition and First Prize from Italy’s Andrea Postacchini International Violin Competition, where he was also awarded a special prize for his performance of Bach. He has received top prizes from New Zealand’s International Michael Hill Competition, the Concertino Praga International Competition and the Jugend Musiziert National Violin Competition and was awarded both Third Prize and the Audience Prize at Switzerland’s International Tibor Varga Competition. In 2010, he received a Career Grant from the REB Foundation.

Altenberger studied at the Mozarteum Salzburg and the Musikhochschule Köln. He has also been a participant at the Verbier Festival, Music at Menlo Festival, Ravinia Festival’s Steans Institute, the Marlboro Music Festival, the Leon Fleisher Workshop at Carnegie Hall, the Munich Philharmonic’s Youth Concert Series and at Prussia Cove in England. The winner of the New England Conservatory’s Mozart Competition, he received both a graduate diploma and an Artist Diploma from NEC as a student of Donald Weilerstein. He recently completed studies with Midori Goto in the Graduate Certificate Program at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California, where he held the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation Scholarship. He toured Cambodia, Europe, and Japan as part of Midori’s community engagement programming, and was featured in the renowned violinist’s first “Young Artist Program for Partners in Performance” in Dillon, Mont. Altenberger has recorded Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 with the Baden-Baden Philharmonic Orchestra, for Germany’s Bella Musica label.

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School of Fine ArtsMusicWest Virginia Symphony Orchestra. Grant CooperKorbinian AltenbergerBeethoven