Lara St. John to Perform at Naumburg Bandshell with Ensemble LPR

Violinist Lara St. John will perform with Ensemble LPR on June 27, 7:30pm, as part of the 112th Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, a free concert series founded in 1905, held at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park.

St. John will give the U.S. Premiere of a new string orchestra arrangement of Matthew Hindson's Maralinga (originally written for her), a haunting work that makes reference to the Aboriginal history at Maralinga, a place in the South Australian desert that was the site for secret British nuclear testing in the 1950s and 1960s. St. John will also perform Ralph Vaughan Williams' timeless work The Lark Ascending.

The rest of the concert will feature an eclectic spectrum of music, with works by contemporary composer Jessie Montgomery, as well as Benjamin Britten, and Igor Stravinsky. The concert will be hosted by WQXR's Paul Cavalconte and broadcast live on Classical 105.9 WQXR and at www.wqxr.org.

"We're delighted to be working with the supremely talented Lara St. John who will play two pieces originally composed for violin and piano (the latter in the program, composed specifically for her), with string orchestra," states Ensemble LPR's David Handler. Describing the evening's program, he adds: "The first half of the evening's music is quintessentially programmatic, taking us from the cosmos to the air to the earthly perils of human weakness and destruction, a subject all too relevant today. The second half features two 20th century masters tipping their hat to the style and form of earlier times, with some of the most exquisitely crafted and-in the case of the Britten-little known work in the repertoire."

All concerts begin at 7:30pm and are presented at the Naumburg Bandshell on the Concert Ground in Central Park located south of the 72nd Street cross-drive. Admission is free on a first-come-first-served basis with some seating provided. No rain dates. For information, contact 212.501.7809 or log on to www.naumburgconcerts.org.