BENNINGTON — Kids of all ages are invited to attend Sage City Symphony’s annual Youth Concert at 4 p.m. on March 12 at Greenwall Auditorium in the VAPA Building at Bennington College. Admission is free and open to all.
The program will feature the first movement of Schumann’s “Piano Concerto in A Minor” with soloist Robin Wang; the first movement of Dittersdorf’s “Double Bass Concerto in D Major” with soloist Grace Winters; the first movement of Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”; the opening of Beethoven’s iconic “Fifth Symphony”; and other youth-friendly selections. As a special treat for budding musicians, string players in grades three to six from the North Bennington Strings at the Village School, led by director and instructor of violin and cello Perri Morris, have been invited to join the orchestra to perform Suzuki’s “Allegro.”
Wang, from Vancouver, Canada, has been playing piano for 13 years. She initially studied with Ronald Morgan and currently studies with Doris Stevenson at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. She first performed at Carnegie Hall in 2014 and has won awards at many national and international competitions. A junior at Williams majoring in physics and classics, Wang plans to pursue engineering after graduation.
Winters is a junior at Mount Greylock Regional High School in Williamstown. She recently played in a concert at Mass MoCA with professionals from New York and the local area in a premiere of the live version of Murray Hidari’s “Distanced Together,” a piece for a 60-part string ensemble.
Morris, director and instructor of violin and cello for the North Bennington Strings at the Village School in North Bennington, is a renowned cellist who had her very first cello lesson with Sage City Symphony manager Gail Smith in 1967 and went on to study with conductor and cellist Michael Finckel and others before earning a bachelor’s degree in performance from the New England Conservatory of Music, a master’s degree in performance from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Mount Holyoke College.
Having served as principal cellist during Sage City’s early years in the 1970s and later as a commissioned composer and cello soloist, music director Finckel continues the unique traditions and musical standards of the orchestra’s co-founder, Louis Calabro. A native of Bennington, Finckel attended Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and Bennington College, where he studied composition, conducting and orchestration. He has taught cello and composition at Bennington and Marymount colleges and at Princeton and Cornell universities.
For more information on the concert, visit sagecitysymphony.org/event/4966735/629399524/youth-concert.
