Rockland Symphony Orchestra To Feature Conductor Jason Tramm and Violin Virtuoso Byung-Kook Kwak

The Rockland Symphony Orchestra launches the 2018 Season with their Late Winter Concert featuring a performance of Dvorak's New World Symphony, on March 4, 2018 at 4:00 PM at Rose Concert Hall on the grounds of the Green Meadow School - 304 Hungry Hollow Road and Rt. 45 in Chestnut Ridge, New York. For this event, the Symphony will be guest -conducted by Rockland's very own Maestro Jason Tramm, appearing with virtuoso violinist Byung-Kook Kwak.

Mr. Tramm, a graduate of Clarkstown South High School, went on to receive degrees in music from the Crane School of Music, the Hartt School of Music as well as a DMA degree in Conducting from Rutgers University where he was the recipient of their prestigious Presidential Fellowship. Maestro Tramm has been hailed as a "Conductor to Watch" by Symphony Magazine and is currently the Artistic Advisor/Conductor of the Adelphi Chamber Orchestra and the Artistic Director/ Principal Conductor of the MidAtlantic Opera. He conducted the MidAtlantic Opera in 2017 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, featuring Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with Metropolitan Opera baritone Mark Delavan. His 2009 performance of "Verdi Requiem: Live from Ocean Grove" broadcast with PBS, garnered an Emmy nomination. He will be performing (for his 12th season) as Director in Music, in Residence, of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, where he leads choral, orchestral and oratorio performances in the historic 6,500 seat Great Auditorium.

Maestro Tramm delights in giving back to the Rockland organizations that inspired him as a student and has conducted the RCMEA All County, Mixed Choir, Treble Choir and Orchestra and has also conducted the Area All-State Orchestra and Mixed Choir. He resides in Nanuet with his family.

Maestro Tramm's program will open with Beethoven's Overture to the Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43, which Beethoven composed in 1801 as the opening for a suite of ballet music. It is Beethoven's only complete set of ballet music and the overture has survived as a frequently performed curtain raiser for orchestral programs. The second piece on the program will be Camille Saint Saen's Havanaise Op. 83 for violin and orchestra. The composer based this piece on the habanera rhythm, evoking the romantic spirit of 19th-century Cuba. Mr. Tramm will be joined in this performance by Mr. Byung-Kook Kwak.

Hailed as a child prodigy, Mr. Kwak was born in Seoul, Korea and made his orchestral debut at the age of seven with the Seoul Philharmonic. He was accepted for study with Jascha Heifetz In the U.S. at age twelve. He received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Music from the Julliard School where he studied with Dorothy Delay and Ivan Galamian. Mr. Kwak enjoys a versatile career as a soloist, chamber musician, conductor and educator. His performances with the Baltimore Symphony, Montreal Symphony and American Symphony as well as with many other orchestras, have been received with critical acclaim. He has performed as concert master with many major metropolitan orchestras and was a featured soloist with the New York Virtuosi on its European tour. He has also appeared with the Oslo and Helsinki Philharmonics as well as with the Gothenburg Symphony. He is an educator and is currently a faculty member of the Manhattan School of Music Pre-College Division and for the past ten years has been the assistant to Aaron Rosand at the Mannes College of Music. From coast to coast, critics have hailed Mr. Kwak as a premier violinist whose talents show technical wizardry and powerful, yet sensitive musicality.

For the final piece on the program, Maestro Tramm has chosen the well-known and much-loved Dvorak Symphony in e minor Op. 95 "From the New World". Dvorak's tuneful symphony has its origins in an extended stay in the U.S., where he was resident for several years in the 1890's and directed a music conservatory in New York. Dvorak became very interested in American-sourced music, including spirituals and Native American melodies, which one can hear very powerfully in this symphony "From the New World".

For ticket information please go to www.rocklandsymphony.org

Photo Courtesy of Donna Schmidt

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