The River Concert Series at St. Mary’s College of Maryland continues this week with a combination of tragic love and classical music.
The Chesapeake Orchestra, under the musical direction of Jeffrey Silberschlag, will perform Fauré’s “Suite: Pelleas et Melisande”; Verdi’s “La Traviata Rhapsody for flute”; Schostakovich’s “Piano Concerto No. 2”; and Prokofiev’s “Suites: Romeo et Juliet.”
Giuseppe Nova, known as one of Italy’s most outstanding flautists, and pianist Brian Ganz, who has performed solo at the Kennedy Center in Washington, are the evening’s featured performers.
Giuseppe Nova’s performances have been described in international publications as “enlightened” and as having “an extraordinary musical sense” (Il Giornale). His “magic performance of virtuosity” has been hailed (Gazzetta del Sud), as well as his expertise on the flute, which has been called “musical art at its perfection” (Nice Matin).
Described as one of the most outstanding Italian flautists of his generation, Nova graduated from the Conservatory in Turin, Italy, and the Conservatoire Supérieur de Lyon, France. He made his debut in 1982 as a soloist with the RAI Symphony Orchestra. This marked the beginning of a career that has since seen him perform in major concert halls in Europe, the United States, Japan, and China.
Brian Ganz is the First Grand Prize recipient in the 1989 Marguerite Long Jacques Thibaud International Piano Competition in Paris. He was also a recipient of the 1989 Beethoven Fellowship, and a silver medalist in the 1991 Queen Elisabeth of Belgium International Piano Competition. After his performance in the finals of the Brussels competition, the music critic for La Libre Belgique wrote: “We don’t have the words to speak of this fabulous musician who lives music with a generous urgency and brings his public into a state of intense joy.”
Ganz has appeared as soloist with the St. Louis Symphony, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Balti-more Symphony, the National Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Memphis Symphony, the City of London Sinfonia, L’Orchestre Lamoureux, and L’Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, among others. He has performed in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Salle Pleyel in Paris, Le Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, De Doelen in Rotterdam, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, L’Arena Theater in Ve-rona, and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. Ganz is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory of Mu-sic, and is artist-in-residence at SMCM, where he has been a member of the piano faculty since 1986.
The goal of the River Concert Series is to assist in economically enhancing the region and cultivating a cultural tourist destination by organizing arts and historical offerings. In 1999, the Chesapeake Or-chestra came into a residency relationship with SMCM with the initiation of the River Concert Series. Since then, the Chesapeake Orchestra has sought to provide musical programming to reach the broad-est possible audience.
The River Concert Series has become the cornerstone of growing arts activities at the College and throughout St. Mary’s County. St. Mary’s is ranked one of the best liberal arts colleges in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, The Princeton Review, Newsweek and Kiplinger’s. With roots going back to 1840, SMCM is the state’s only public honors college, offering the academic excellence of a top private college with the openness and affordability of public education.