Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra to Present Strings of Lights at The Second Church

Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra will welcome conductor Adrian Slywotsky for a fascinating concert, Strings of Lights, showcasing Pro Arte’s string section on June 9th, at the Second Church in Newton, MA. For tickets and information visit proarte.org.

 The repertoire for this string-focused concert will open with Antonio Vivaldi’s boisterous Concerto for Strings in D Major, providing the entire orchestra an opportunity to shine.  Pēteris Vasks’s Adagio from Cello Concerto No. 2 "Presence" is an allusion to the work’s spiritual meditation on the human condition.  Principal cellist Steven Laven is the soloist.

Composer Reena Esmail combines traditional Hindustani raag with Western composition technique to present, in her words, “three large musical ‘figures’ that are adjoined by short interludes in her 2013 Teen Murti (three statues in Hindi). 

Finally, in Ludwig van Beethoven’s first string quartet, arranged for Pro Arte by cellist Leo Eguchi, audiences will hear the composer marking the genre bequeathed to him by Haydn and Mozart with his own distinct and consequential voice.

Adrian Slywotzky is a prize winner of the Atlantic Coast International Conducting Competition (Portugal, 2016) and the Audite International Conducting Competition (Poland, 2017). He was the founding music director of the Yale Medical Symphony Orchestra, and from 2007 to 2010 music director of the New Haven Chamber Orchestra. As a conductor of Yale’s New Music New Haven concert series and the University of Michigan’s Contemporary Directions Ensemble, he has led countless performances of contemporary chamber orchestra works. He directed the premiere of Hugo Kauder’s magnum opus, the operaMerlin. A sought-after educator, Adrian serves as Director of Orchestras at the Crane School of Music, and previously was Associate Director of Orchestras at the University of Michigan. He has served as Associate Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras, as teaching fellow for the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, and on the faculty of the Conductors Retreat at Medomak.

Adrian holds degrees in orchestral conducting from the University of Michigan, where he studied with Kenneth Kiesler, and the Yale School of Music, where he studied with Shinik Hahm. As a violinist and chamber musician, Adrian has participated in festivals including Tanglewood Music Center, California Summer Music, and the Norfolk Contemporary Music Festival. He holds a BA in architecture from Yale College, where he studied violin with Kyung Yu, and an MM in violin performance from the Yale School of Music, where he studied with Wendy Sharp.

Cellist Steven Laven, a Wayland resident, appears with the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra (Principal Cellist), the Rhode Island Philharmonic, the Handel & Haydn Society, the Boston Symphony, and Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra. He is also an adjunct cello and chamber music instructor at Rhode Island College, performing in the faculty Proteus String Quartet. Previously, Mr. Laven has held titled positions in the Houston Ballet, Houston Grand Opera, and Omaha Symphony Orchestras. He has earned cello performance degrees from the Eastman and Manhattan Schools of Music.

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