Cape Ann Symphony Will Perform THE KNOWN (AND UNKNOWN) GREATS CONCERT

The Cape Ann Symphony’s 72nd Concert Season will continue with The Known (and Unknown) Greats Concert featuring world renowned pianist Janice Weber on Sunday, March 17  at 2 pm at Manchester-Essex High School auditorium on 36 Lincoln Street in Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA. For tickets and information about the concert, call 978-281-0543 or visit www.capeannsymphony.org

The program for The Known (and Unknown Greats) Concert features Louise Farrenc's  Overture No. 1; William Grant Still's Woodnotes and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 performed by Janice Weber. Ms. Weber made her Cape Ann Symphony debut in 2008 playing Saint Saens’ Piano Concerto No. 2.in The  French Fantasy Concert. CAS Music Director and Conductor Yoichi Udagawa looks forward to the upcoming concert, "Virtuoso pianist Janice Weber is an amazing artist! She has a long history of breathtaking performances with CAS. We can't wait for our audience to hear her perform Beethoven's Emperor Concerto. We begin the concert with a sparkling Overture by the French composer Louise Farrenc followed by a gorgeous suite for orchestra by American composer William Grant Still."

A summa cum laude graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Janice Weber has performed at the White House, Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, National Gallery of Art, and Boston Symphony Hall. She has appeared with the Boston Pops, Chautauqua Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Hilton Head Orchestra, Sarajevo Philharmonic, and Syracuse Symphony. She has performed at the Bard, Newport, La Gesse, Husum, and Monadnock summer festivals and has returned frequently to China for concerts and master classes under the auspices of the American Liszt Society. Her recordings include Rachmaninoff’s complete transcriptions; with the Lydian Quartet, Leo Ornstein’s vast Piano Quintet; flute and piano works of Sigfrid Karg-Elert; and waltz transcriptions of Godowsky, Rosenthal, and Friedman. (Miss) Weber recorded Liszt’s last Hungarian Rhapsody, one of only two living pianists to be included in a compendium of historic performances by nineteen legendary artists. This disc subsequently won the International Liszt Prize.

A Steinway artist, Ms. Weber was a member of the piano faculty at Boston Conservatory for twenty-seven years and has taught at MIT and New England Conservatory. She is Artistic Director of South Coast Chamber Music, an integral part of the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra , and  Double Digits, her duo-piano collaboration with Alex Poliykov, is a staple of the Boston keyboard scene. Ms. Weber produced three sets of tones for Ivory, the worldwide bestselling virtual piano software

Janice Weber's skills go well beyond being a virtuoso pianist. An accomplished author , Ms. Weber's novels have a worldwide following. At the time of her Carnegie Recital Hall debut at age nine, she was writing her first short stories. Ms. Weber's debut novel, The Secret Life of Eva Hathaway, enjoys near cult status and is widely recognized as iconic Chick Lit – though appearing years before the genre was invented. Its colorful characters, verbal virtuosity, wit, and sensuality established the hallmarks of a style that has earned Weber comparison with Mark Twain, Fran Liebowitz, Harold Pinter, and Robert Ludlum. Ms. Weber’s novels happen between (and occasionally during) concerts. Music on some level infiltrates almost every book: Eva Hathaway writes hymns between trysts, in Customs Violations Floyd Beck met the love of his life at Carnegie Hall, in Frost The  Fiddler Leslie Frost is a concert violinist, and Ross Major listens to Beethoven when the going gets rough.

Louise Farrenc was a French composer, virtuoso pianist and teacher of the Romantic period. Her compositions include three symphonies, choral works, numerous chamber pieces and a wide variety of piano music. Her works are compared to the likes of Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann. She began piano studies at an early age, and she was given lessons by several masters. Because of talent she so clearly showed as a composer, her parents decided to let her, at the age of fifteen, study composition with Anton Reicha, the composition teacher at the Conservatoire de Paris.

Ms. Farrenc embarked on a concert career gaining fame as a performer and  in 1842 she was appointed to the position of Professor of Piano at the Paris Conservatory, among the most prestigious in Europe, a position she held for thirty years. She was the only woman to hold the position at the Paris Conservatory throughout the 19th century. Initially, she composed exclusively for the piano. Several of these pieces drew high praise from critics, includingRobert Schumann. In the 1830s, she began to write larger compositions for both chamber ensembles and orchestra and wrote two overtures and three symphonies.

Louise Farrenc's works were largely forgotten until, in the late 20th century, an interest in women composers led to the rediscovery and the performance and recording of many of her works. In December 2013, Farrenc was the subject of a long-running BBC Radio 3 program Composer of the Week.

William Grant Still composed nearly two hundred works, including five symphonies, four ballets, nine operas, more than thirty choral works, art songs, chamber music, and solo works. Still was the first American composer to have an opera produced by the New York City Opera. His Afro-American Symphony (1930) is one of the most widely performed symphonic works composed by an American. 

Mr. Still started violin lessons at age 15 and then taught himself to play the clarinet, saxophone, oboe, double bass, cello and viola. He studied music at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. In 1916, Mr. Still worked in Memphis for W.C. Handy's band. Then, in 1918, joined the United States Navy to serve in World War I. After the war he moved to Harlem, NY, where he continued to work for Handy. During this time, he was involved with many cultural figures of what became known as the Harlem Renaissance. 

He played in the pit orchestra for the musical, Shuffle Along and another pit with the hugely popular Sophie Tucker, Artie Shaw, and Paul Whiteman. In the 1930s, he worked as an arranger of popular music, composing works for popular NBC Radio broadcasts.

Mr. Still's first major orchestral composition, Symphony No. 1 Afro-American, was performed in 1931 by the Rochester Philharmonic conducted by the renowned Howard Hanson. It was the first time the complete score of a work by an African American was performed by a major orchestra. By the end of World War II, the piece had been performed in orchestras located in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Berlin, Paris, and London. 

 In 1934 he moved to Los Angeles after receiving his first Guggenheim Fellowship, allowing him to start work on the first of his nine operas, Blue Steel. Two years later, Still conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl, the first African American to conduct a major American orchestra in a performance of his own works. Mr. Still's works have been performed internationally by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, The London Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Orchestra and many others.

Founded in Gloucester in 1951, the Cape Ann Symphony is a professional orchestra of over 70 players from throughout the New England area. They perform a subscription season of four concerts per year plus several Pops and youth concerts. The Symphony Board of Directors named Yoichi Udagawa the Music Director and Conductor of the Cape Ann Symphony in the summer of 2000 after a yearlong search. In addition to his leadership of Cape Ann Symphony, he is Music Director and Conductor of the Melrose Symphony Orchestra, and the Quincy Symphony Orchestra and a cover conductor at the Boston Pops Orchestra. Frequently invited to guest conduct, Mr. Udagawa has worked with many different orchestras including the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, Nobeoka Philharmonic Orchestra, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, the University of Texas Symphony Orchestra, the Indian Hill Symphony, the Garden State Philharmonic, the Brown University Orchestra, the Syracuse Society for New Music, the Boston Conservatory Orchestra, the Midcoast Symphony Orchestra, the Newton Symphony, the Austin Civic Orchestra, and the Mid-Texas Symphony. Mr. Udagawa is at home in popular and contemporary music as well as the standard symphonic repertoire. He is known for his relaxed manner and ability to speak from the podium which has helped new audiences as well as enthusiasts gain a greater appreciation for symphonic music. His programs often include premieres of new works – some specially commissioned for the orchestra — as well as great orchestral works across the symphonic repertoire and lively Pops programs. He is also an integral part of the Cape Ann Symphony Youth Outreach programs to area schools.

Cape Ann Symphony’s Known (and Unknown Greats) Concert is Sunday, March 17 at 2 pm at Manchester-Essex High School auditorium on 36 Lincoln Street in Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA, . Single ticket prices are $45 for adults, $40 for senior citizens age 65 and above, $20 for Students of any age with a valid student id; $5 for youth 12 years old and under. For tickets and information, call 978-281-0543 or visit www.capeannsymphony.org.

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