Jason Tramm to Conduct BEETHOVEN AT 250 at Merkin Concert Hall

Noted conductor Jason Tramm will lead the Long Island Concert Orchestra and Guest Soloist, the acclaimed Korean violinist and rising star, Kyoung-Joo Sung in the Midatlantic Artistic Productions concert "Beethoven at 250" at Merkin Concert Hall, Saturday March 21 at 8PM. Tickets can be secured online at Kaufman Music Center or are available at the Box Office (T 212 501 3330) located at 129 West 67th Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam) in New York City. Tickets range from $35-$25. Students and Seniors tickets ($25) available at the box office with valid ID.

For the concert Maestro Tramm will conduct two of Beethoven's initially controversial, yet ultimately celebrated works: the Violin Concerto in D Major, op. 61 and Symphony No. 2 in D Major, op. 36. The program will open with the New York premiere of contemporary composer David Winkler's Forza Vita Concert Overture, a symphonic overture of about seven minutes duration originally commissioned by the International Beethoven Festival in Chicago to open their 2012 Festival.

Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major, op. 61 was first performed in 1806 and the premiere was not a success. In 1844, decades after Beethoven's death, a revival of the work conducted by Felix Mendelssohn and the London Philharmonic Society -featuring the 12-year-old violinist Joseph Joachim - catapulted the composition to prominence and established the piece as one of the most important works of the violin concerto repertoire.

Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 in D Major, op. 36 suffered a similar fate, when Beethoven himself conducted the premiere in April 1803. The Viennese publication Zeitung fuer die elegante Welt (Newspaper for the Elegant World) described the symphony as "a hideously writhing, wounded dragon that refuses to die, but writhing in its last agonies and, in the fourth movement, bleeding to death." The influential Beethoven biographer Maynard Solomon described the work as "both retrospective and prospective." Solomon's statement not only reflects Symphony No. 2's position in the Beethoven cannon as a stylistically transitional composition, but also addresses Beethoven's state of mind as his advancing and uncurable deafness battled with the composer's determination not to be defined or limited by his disease. Lewis Lockwood, another prominent Beethoven biographer, wrote of Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 in D Major, "The symphony crosses new boundaries, moving into a range of dramatic expression in which the strongest possible contrasts occur in unexpected immediacy... This symphony signaled that from now on in Beethoven's works power and lyricism in extreme forms were to be unleashed as never before...and that contemporaries, ready or not, would have to reshape their expectations to keep up with him."

Maestro Tramm serves as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor with the MidAtlantic Artistic Productions with whom he made his Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium) debut in 2015. The program, entitled "A Prayer for Peace," featured works of Bernstein, Vaughan Williams, and Saygun. The second concert of this critically acclaimed series took place on October 27, 2017 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and featured works of Vasks, Schoenberg and Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with Metropolitan Opera baritone, Mark Delavan. He also serves as Music Director of Teatro Lirico D'Europa, a touring professional opera company. Upcoming tour repertoire for the 2019-20 season includes fully staged performances of Puccini's Madama Butterfy and Verdi's La Traviata. Performances will take place in Florida, New Hampshire, West Virginia and South Carolina. He served as Artistic Director of the New Jersey State Opera from 2008 to 2012, where he collaborated with some of the finest voices in opera, including Samuel Ramey, Vladimir Galouzine, Angela Brown, Gregg Baker, and Paul Plishka. His 2009 HDTV broadcast with PBS affiliate NJN of "Verdi Requiem: Live from Ocean Grove," garnered an Emmy Award nomination.

The busy maestro is entering his 14th season as Director of Music, in Residence, of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association in the summer months, where he leads the choral, orchestral, and oratorio performances in the historic 6,500-seat Great Auditorium. In addition to the Ocean Grove Choir Festival, a beloved event in its 64th year and attended by thousands, he has appeared on two National Public Radio broadcasts with organ virtuoso Gordon Turk and symphonic orchestra. He also serves as Music Director of two acclaimed community choral societies, the Morris Choral Society (Morristown, NJ), with whom he begin his fifth season and he is in his second season with the Taghkanic Chorale (Yorktown Heights, NY). Maestro Tramm was also appointed as the Music Director/Conductor of the Axelrod Contemporary Ballet Ensemble, where he collaborates with noted director/choreographer, Gabriel Chajnik.

An accomplished educator, he serves as Director of Choral Activities at Seton Hall University where he leads the University Chorus, Chamber Choir, Orchestra, and teaches voice and conducting. In 2017, Seton Hall University Awarded him the University Faculty Teacher of the Year. Educating and mentoring the next generation of musicians has always been a central part of Jason Tramm's career. He is also actively sought as a clinician and regularly presents lectures on a wide variety of musical topics.

Jason Tramm holds degrees in music from the Crane School, the Hartt School, and a DMA in Conducting from Rutgers University, where he was the recipient of their prestigious Presidential Fellowship. In 2003, he joined the ranks of Metropolitan Opera Stars Renee Fleming and Stephanie Blythe when he was honored with the Rising Star Award from the SUNY Potsdam Alumni Association. A frequent guest conductor, he has led operatic and symphonic performances in Italy, Romania, Albania, and in Hungary, where he recorded an album of rarely heard French operatic arias with the Szeged Symphony. He was Guest Conductor on the Narnia Festival (Narni, Italy) during the 2017 season, where he will return for the 2020 summer season. Guest conducting/Masterclass engagements for the 2020 season include the Adelphi Orchestra, the Long Island Concert Orchestra, Light Opera of New Jersey, Hungary's Savaria Orchestra at the Kutur Radiohaus (Vienna) and the Czech Republic's Karlovy Vary Symphony Orchestra in Smetana Hall (Prague).