The Binghamton Community Orchestra opens its 2019-2020 season with a “Fall Concert.” The program will be the first event by the Community Orchestra marking a full-season collaboration with the Binghamton Philharmonic’s “Beethoven Project,” celebrating Ludwig van Beethoven’s 250th birthday year. Toward that end, the BCO will program a Beethoven overture on each of three concerts, opening this concert with Overture, “Consecration of the House.”
Also on the concert, the BCO will include Le Chasseur maudit (César Frank), Lieutenant Kijé Suite (Sergei Prokofiev) and Slava! (Leonard Bernstein). Featured guest soloist, Joshua Jang, cellist and winner of the Southern Tier Music Teachers’ Association’s 2019 Concerto Competition, will be performing Allegro Appassionato (Saint-Saëns) with the orchestra. The concert will take place on Saturday, November 23, 2019 at 7:00 pm at the Binghamton East Middle School Auditorium.
With this concert, the orchestra welcomes guest conductor, Barry Peters, to the podium. Mr. Peters should be no stranger to concertgoers in the Binghamton area. He is probably best known these days as Music Director of the Binghamton Youth Symphony Orchestra, a position he has held since 1997. Under his directorship, the BYSO was twice a featured performing ensemble at the New York State School Music Association’s (NYSSMA) Winter Conference, and has performed in Washington D.C. and Boston, as well as locally in televised performances of their Holiday Concerts. The orchestra has also performed several commissioned works by local composers.
Those who know the community may also remember Mr. Peters as a long time music teacher and high school band director with the Union-Endicott School District. His bands made frequent appearances at various NYSSMA and New York State Field Band Association (NYSFBA) competitions, receiving many honors, including Gold with Distinction ratings from NYSSMA, and two championships from NYSFBA. He has more recently been an adjunct faculty member for the School of Music at Ithaca College. Mr. Peters has made frequent conducting appearances with county, area all-state and honor bands and orchestras in New York and Pennsylvania, guest conductorships with the Mansfield University Summer Music Camp, the Eastern U.S. Music Camp at Colgate University, and the New England Music Camp in Oakland, Maine. Mr. Peters is currently the Associate Conductor of the Southern Tier Concert Band.
In addition to his conducting work, Mr. Peters may also frequently found among the ranks of other musicians as a trumpeter. Heard often with the Southern Tier Concert Band, he has also performed as Principal Trumpet with the Corning Philharmonic and the Elmira Symphony, the Ithaca Concert Band and the Southern Tier Wind Ensemble. He has also performed with the B.C. Pops Orchestra, Ithaca Community Band, Downtown Singers Orchestra, European Brass, Endicott Performing Arts Center, Binghamton Summer Savoyards Orchestra and several local big bands. He has also appeared as trumpet soloist at St. Patrick and St. Thomas churches in Binghamton.
Mr. Peters has given much back to the community. He has served on the Board of Directors for New York State Band Directors’ Association, the Mansfield University Alumni, the Binghamton Community Orchestra , Southern Tier Band and the Harmony Club. He is on the Executive Committee of the New York State Field Band Conference. He is a certified NYSSMA judge, providing frequent adjudication for many NYSSMA Solo and Ensemble Festivals and Major Organization Festivals throughout New York State.
Mr. Peters has received an Outstanding Retired Band Director Award in 2005 from the New York State Band Directors’ Association, and the Distinguished Educator Award from the Mansfield University Alumni Association in 2010.
The concept behind the programming for this concert is kind of a smorgasbord for the ears. Mr. Peters explains, “I tried to give the audience and the performers a varied program that should have something for everyone to enjoy.” He has done so by selecting a program in which each piece is vividly evocative in its own unique way.
The first and last pieces on the concert bookend, in a way, that very idea. The Overture, “Consecration of the House” was performed for the first time as part of a celebration of the opening of a brand new theater in Vienna, the “Theater in der Josefstadt.” The closing piece, Slava!, was written to commemorate Mstislav Rostropovich’s first season as Musical Director of the National Symphony Orchestra. (“Slava,” Rostropovich’s nickname, is shouted by the whole orchestra at the end of the piece!) While the Beethoven largely conforms to classical norms, and the Bernstein is, by comparison, very jazzy and raucous, both pieces are vividly celebratory and ecstatically exuberant.
In between the two, the audience will hear The Accursed Huntsman (Le Chasseur maudit) which vividly tells the story of a count who decides to go on a hunt – on a Sunday! As a consequence, he is cursed and pursued by demons, and ends up meeting his eternal demise. Lieutenant Kijé is film music at its best, written for a movie of the same name about a non-existent lieutenant, created by a stenographer’s slip of a pen, whose life story has to be maintained by fictions to cover and protect the courtiers from the wrath of the Tsar.
Fitting right in with these colorful selections is the Allegro Appassionato, a well-known showpiece for cello, which will be performed by guest soloist, Joshua Jang.
Joshua Jang is a freshman at Vestal High School. While in the second grade, after having tried other instrument, Joshua decided the cello was for him. He explains, “I love my instrument because of its sound.” Not too high or low in timbre, the cello has for him, “a perfect sound that is layered and rich, having a tone just like the human voice.” Since then, Joshua has been very active in his schools’ music programs, playing cello in orchestra, and also playing clarinet in band and singing in choir. Joshua has also been studying cello privately, first with Ruth Fischer and later with Zachary Sweet.
In addition to musical activities in school, Joshua has extensive participation in honor orchestras out in the community. He has successfully auditioned for All-County orchestras (Broome County Music Educators’ Association) every year since fifth grade, each time earning the principal cello seat. Similarly, he has been selected to play with several Area All-State orchestras (NYSSMA) as well. Joshua has been a member of the Binghamton Youth Symphony, and since seventh grade, has been performing with the Senior Orchestra, again as principal cellist.
A frequent participant in the NYSSMA Solo Festival, Joshua received this past April, a perfect score on his level 6 (highest level of difficulty) solo. In 2018, Joshua won the STMTA Competition in the Middle School String Division. Then, this past spring, he won the STMTA Concerto Competition. It is this competition that provided him the opportunity to solo with the Binghamton Community Orchestra.
A well-rounded and active student, Joshua participates in Science Olympiad and Mathletes. He won first place as a sixth grader for both the team and individual round of the Broome County Mathalon Competition. As an eighth grader, his team won 3rd place at the Mathcount Chapter Competition. This past year, Joshua attended the Johns Hopkins University Summer Camp in Biology. Last June, he delivered a speech on behalf of his fellow students at his middle school graduation ceremony.
When asked about his future plans in music, Joshua shared, “I would like to continue to learn and study cello. I would like to enter other competitions which will give me a good opportunity to perform, because I like to share my music with others.” Joshua hopes to spend a lifetime exploring as much of beautiful cello repertoire of all styles and genres as he can.
The Binghamton Community Orchestra is excited and honored to share the stage with Joshua Jang this coming November.
Come hear the Binghamton Community Orchestra, conducted by guest conductor Barry Peters, and guest soloist Joshua Jang in the season opening “Fall Concert” on November 23, 2019 at Binghamton East Middle School Auditorium at 7:00 pm, with support from the orchestra’s corporate sponsors, Weis Markets and S.E.E.D. Planning Group. The school is located at 167 E. Frederick Street, Binghamton, NY. Tickets for this concert are available at the door.
Prices are:
- Adults – $12
- Seniors/students – $10
- Children 12 and under are admitted for free.
For additional information about the concert, and the Binghamton Community Orchestra, please visit the orchestra’s website at: http://binghamtoncommunityorchestra.org/.
For questions, please call or email at:
Phone: (607) 862-6268
E-mail: info@BinghamtonCommunityOrchestra.org
