USU Symphony Orchestra Opens Season with Guest Artist

Utah State University’s Symphony Orchestra opens the concert year in a big way with an all-Beethoven concert and a special guest artist, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s concertmaster Andrés Cárdenes.

The opening concert is Friday, Oct. 13, at 7:30 p.m. in the Kent Concert Hall of the Chase Fine Arts Center. A second event is Saturday, Oct. 14, when Cárdenes is joined in recital by USU graduate and pianist Adam Nielsen. That event begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Manon Caine Russell Kathryn Caine Wanlass Performance Hall.

 

Tickets for both events are available at the door. Admission is $5 and USU students with current ID are admitted free.

 

The department of music is home to the USU Symphony Orchestra and its director Sergio Bernal.

 

The all-Beethoven concert features his immortal “Fifth Symphony” and his sublime “Violin Concerto,” Bernal said.

 

“The orchestra and I are very excited about this concert because of the powerful music,” Bernal said. “We are excited and pleased to perform with our special guest Andrés Cárdenes.”

 

Cárdenes has garnered international acclaim from critics and audiences for his ferocious technique, balanced by a remarkable tonal subtlety, Bernal said. He captured the top American prize in the 1982 Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition in Moscow, and has since appeared with more than 80 orchestras worldwide, including those of Moscow, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Houston, Helsinki, Caracas, Barcelona, Brussels and Shanghai. He has collaborated with noted conductors, including Lorin Maazel, Leonard Slatkin, André Previn, David Zinman, Charles Dutoit, the late Eduardo Mata, James Conlon and Gerard Schwarz.

 

As a recitalist, Cárdenes has performed in many of the world’s leading cultural centers, including New York, Washington, D.C., Paris, London, Mexico City and Moscow.

 

Cárdenes has been an active teacher for more than 20 years, beginning with his appointment to the faculty of Indiana University in 1979. A former student and protégé of the legendary Josef Gingold, he has continued the legacy and discipline of the master pedagogue as professor of music at the universities of Michigan and Utah, and at Carnegie Mellon, where he holds the Dorothy Richard Starling and Alexander C. Speyer, Jr. Chair, the first fully endowed chair in the CMU Music School. Cárdenes has also given numerous master classes at Rice and Columbia universities, among others.

 

Joining Cárdenes in the second event (Oct. 14) is pianist Adam Nielsen, a USU piano performance graduate who now studies at the Julliard School. During his time at USU, Nielsen was a National Presser Scholar and Rigby Scholar. He earned a bachelor’s degree in music. He is pursuing a master’s degree at Julliard, where he holds the Golden and Fizdale Memorial and Susan B. Rose scholarships. He studies with Jerome Lowenthal.

 

“We have a weekend of great orchestra and chamber music ahead of us,” Bernal concluded.

 

Contact: Sergio Bernal (435) 797-0487, sergio.bernal@usu.edu