Guest Conductor David Bernard to Lead South Shore Symphony in Mozart Program, 4/18

The acclaimed American conductor David Bernard will lead a classic program of Mozart with the South Shore Symphony Orchestra on Saturday evening, April 18, 2015, 8 pm at The Madison Theatre, 1000 Hempstead Ave., Rockville Centre, New York.

A highlight of the evening will be Mozart's incomparable Clarinet Concerto performed by distinguished clarinetist Stanley Drucker, former principal clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic. The performance of the clarinet concerto follows Mr. Bernard and Mr. Drucker's recent recording of the concerto with the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, in Mr. Bernard's own performance edition of the work.

The complete program follows:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Overture in D, K. 320 Posthorn

Clarinet Concerto K. 622 in A Major
Stanley Drucker, clarinet

Symphony No. 41 K. 551 in C Major ("Jupiter")

For tickets at $20 and $15 for seniors and Guild Members, visit the Madison Theatre Box Office, telephone 516-323-4444 or visit: http://madisontheatreny.org.

Conductor David Bernard, Music Director and founder of New York City's Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, has gained recognition for his dramatic and incisive conducting in over 20 countries on four continents, including a nine-city tour of the People's Republic of China and a guest conducting assignment with the China Conservatory Orchestra.

Maestro Bernard recently led the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony at the Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall, Time Warner Center in New York City on February 22, 2015 in an ambitious program of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps and the Wagner/Maazel The Ring Without Words, which drew the following superlatives from Alan Young of Lucid Culture (February 24, 2015):

Anyone who experienced Stravinsky's Rite of Spring for the first time in concert Sunday at the Rose Theatre at Jazz at Lincoln Center is spoiled for life. Conducting from memory, David Bernard led a transcendent performance of The Rite of Spring with intensity, passion and fervor. Segues were seamless, contrasts were vivid and Stravinsky's whirling exchanges of voices were expertly choreographed.

And from Paul Pelkonen, reviewing the concert for SuperConductor, (February 24, 2015) these words of praise:

For this concert, music director David Bernard assembled a large and ambitious program. The performance showed the benefits of considerable preparation. The Rite had poetry and meaning, managing the proto-jazz changes in the score and the challenging, delicate passages that alternate with the grinding fortissimi, building a dark, memorable crescendo around the rising chords that indicate the procession of the ancients, and blasting through the thunderous Final Dance and Sacrifice in powerful fashion. That energy carried into the Ride of the Valkyries and a performance of Wotan's Farewell that had real poetry with Mr. Bernard relishing each bar of the famous final chords.

Active throughout the greater New York City area, Maestro Bernard has appeared as a guest conductor with the Long Island String Festival, the Massapequa Philharmonic, the New York Symphonic Arts Ensemble, the Putnam Symphony, as well as the South Shore Symphony. Mr. Bernard has previously served as Music Director of the Stony Brook University Orchestra, the Gilbert and Sullivan Light Opera Company of Long Island, and Theater Three. Previously Bernard held the post of Assistant Conductor of both the Jacksonville and Stamford symphony orchestras.

A two-time First Prize Winner of the Orchestral Conducting Competition of The American Prize, David Bernard was described by the judges as "a first rate conductor. With no score, an animated and present Maestro Bernard led a phenomenal performance of incredibly difficult repertoire-masterly in shaping, phrasing, technique and expressivity". A reading of Richard Strauss's Tod und Verklärung brought high praise from Lucid Culture which found the performance to be "unsurpassed in its dynamic range and attention to detail."

Devoted to the music of our own time, Bernard has presented world premières of scores by Bruce Adolphe, Chris Caswell, John Mackey, and Ted Rosenthal, while distinguished concert collaborators include Carter Brey, David Chan, Catherine Cho, Pedro Díaz, Stanley Drucker, Bart Feller, Whoopi Goldberg, Sirena Huang, Judith Ingolfsson, Christina Jennings, Anna Lee, Jessica Lee, Kristin Lee, Jon Manasse, Spencer Myer, Todd Phillips, and James Archie Worley.

Maestro Bernard's discography includes 17 albums spanning music from Vivaldi to Copland, including a complete Beethoven symphony cycle praised for its "intensity, spontaneity, propulsive rhythm, textural clarity, dynamic control, and well-judged phrasing" (Fanfare). About his release of 20th century orchestral music by Copland, Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams, and Bartók Fanfare Magazine wrote:

David Bernard is an exceptional conductor... His performances are marked by a strong sense of the music's structure, an outstanding feeling for orchestral texture and phrasing, and a dynamic rhythmic propulsion that makes itself felt even in quiet passages. (July 2014)

Maestro Bernard is passionately committed to elementary and secondary school music education, continuously developing new talent and providing solo performance experience to exciting young artists. His leadership in fundraising for music education programs has bolstered outreach, community music schools and conservatory preparatory programs-most notably the Harmony Program (a New York City initiative modeled after Venezuela's "El Sistema") and the Lucy Moses School. Mr. Bernard and the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony have also established the Parent's Association Endowed Scholarship Fund at The Juilliard School Pre-College Division.

David Bernard is an alumnus of The Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of Music, Stony Brook University, Tanglewood, and Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

Legendary clarinetist Stanley Drucker, who joined the New York Philharmonic in 1948, became the orchestra's principal clarinets, a post he retained till 2008. His time with the Philharmonic included nearly 150 solo appearances with the orchestra. He gave the first performances of clarinet concertos by John Corigliano and William Bolcom, both of these commissions for the New York Philharmonic. Mr. Drucker began clarinet studies at age ten with Leon Russianoff and attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts (formerly the High School of Music & Art). He entered the Curtis Institute of Music at age 15, but left Curtis after one year, having been recruited by the Indianapolis Symphony. He worked with the Busch Little Symphony and then became principal clarinetist of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. Drucker has appeared on two recordings of the Corigliano concerto, a studio recording conducted by Zubin Mehta and a live recording of the 1977 premiere performance conducted by Leonard Bernstein. In 2010, Stanley Drucker received an honorary doctorate in music from the University of Florida.