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Mark your calendars now! Feb. 22 at 6:00 pm ET The Ohio Valley Symphony with Michael Johnathon of Woodsongs will be on RFDTV in a premiere showing of Songs of Rural America recorded live at the historic Ariel Opera House in Gallipolis, Ohio.

Plan dinner and drinks out and enjoy this television premiere on the big screen at the Colony Club on Second Avenue, two doors down from the Ariel Opera House.

Or watch at home by tuning to Directv channel 345; DishNet Channel 231; Suddenlink Channel 370.

March 30, 2019

Elizabeth Pitcairn asked if she could come back to perform on our 30th Anniversary concert March 30th, and of course we said a resounding Yes! She will bring her legendary Red Mendelssohn Stradivarius and will be joined by Maestro Miriam Burns on the podium for a wonderful evening of beautiful music you won’t soon forget.

Conductor Miriam Burns

Miriam Burns was on staff with the New York Philharmonic as one of their Cover Conductors from 1999-2007, having been appointed by Kurt Masur as a result of a competitive audition by-invitation-only. In this capacity, she accompanied the orchestra on tour to the Far East as the tour Assistant Conductor to then new Music Director, Lorin Maazel, and for eight years was entrusted as an assistant conductor on call for countless specific, fully prepared programs under many guest conductors of international repute.

Now in her sixth season as Music Director and Conductor of the Tysons McLean Orchestra (VA), Ms. Burns continues as Music Director of The Orchestra of the Redeemer in New York City since 1995. Recent prior Music Directorships include the Tallahassee Symphony, where she was designated a Paul Harris Fellow for six years of outstanding contribution to the cultural life of Tallahassee, the Kenosha Symphony and the Lawton Philharmonic. Additionally, she is Principal Conductor and Music Advisor for the popular multimedia orchestral show RePLAY: Symphony of Heroes, based on the symphonic music of videogames. As such, she conducted the world premiere with the Sydney Symphony at the Sydney Opera House in Australia, followed by performances with the Houston Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Grand Rapids Symphony, members of the Toronto Symphony at the Sony Centre, and conducts ensuing performances with other major orchestras as the show is booked.

In 2017 Ms. Burns debuted as guest conductor with the Rochester Philharmonic. International engagements have included two recent performances with the Magdeburg Philharmonic in Germany, preceded by debuts with the Bournemouth Symphony (ENG); in Germany at the Stadthalle in Wuppertal: the First Ladies Symphony Orchestra of Poland, and the YinQi Symphony Orchestra in Taiwan. Highlights of prior guest conducting within the US include appearances with orchestras such as the Memphis Symphony, Virginia Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Syracuse Symphony, South Carolina Philharmonic, Mansfield Symphony, Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, MasterWorks Festival, Sewanee Music Festival, C.W. Post Music Festival and the Skaneateles Festival.

Versatile in all genres, she is active on operatic stages as well, having conducted opera at the MasterWorks Festival and having been Associate Music Director of the Bronx Opera Company – conducting opening nights – for nine years. Ms. Burns has performed with two-time Grammy winner Sylvia McNair, and is on the conducting roster of Broadway Pops International, Inc. through which she guest conducted two performances of an Elvis Tribute with the Memphis Symphony. Equally fluent in choral/orchestral repertoire, Ms. Burns has conducted major oratorio with prominent Metropolitan Opera soloists such as Ben Heppner, Heidi Grant Murphy, Angela Brown, Mark Delavan, Mark Oswald and others. Committed to the furthering of musical education of all generations, she recently guest conducted the NAfME All-National Youth Orchestra, is sought-after as an All-State conductor, has guest conducted at CelloSpeak and has twice served as a private coach / specialist on the faculty of Chorus America’s Choral/Orchestral Masterclasses for the orchestral conducting training of choral conductors.

Ms. Burns has received conducting awards from the Aspen Music Festival, studying with Paul Vermel, and the Conductors Guild, where she was unanimously presented with their prestigious biennial prize, the Thelma Robinson Scholarship, while still a student at Mannes College of Music (NY). Ms. Burns also received an Artist Diploma in Yale University’s eminent Conductor Apprentice Program on full scholarship and upon special invitation of Yale faculty. In this capacity, she regularly worked with noted mentor conductors such as Gunther Herbig, Lawrence Leighton Smith and Eleazar de Carvallho. She also participated in master classes under the tutelage of prominent guests such as Kurt Masur, Leopold Hager and Zdenek Macal. Ms. Burns completed her Masters degree and Professional Studies in Orchestral Conducting on full scholarship at the Mannes College, where she studied with Yakov Kreizberg and Michael Charry. Previously active as a violinist, she holds both Bachelors and Masters degrees in violin performance from Mannes, during which time she began preliminary conducting studies with Semyon Bychkov. Ms. Burns is an alumna of both the New York String Orchestra Seminar under Alexander Schneider, and The Quartet Program. An avid chamber musician, Ms. Burns was an original member of the former Chester String Quartet.

Elizabeth Pitcairn, violin

American violin virtuoso Elizabeth Pitcairn is passionate about youth and education. She serves as President and Artistic Director of the Luzerne Music Center which provides training for gifted young musicians ages 9-18 in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York.

The artist performs with one of the world’s most legendary instruments, the “Red Mendelssohn” Stradivarius violin of 1720, said to have inspired the Academy Award–winning film The Red Violin. Pitcairn is featured on the 10th Anniversary edition of The Red Violin DVD in a special feature called “The Auction Block”. Named the Red Stradivarius violin while in the possession of Joseph Joachim, it was a gift from her grandfather in 1990 at Christie’s Auction in London.

Born in 1973 in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to a closely-knit musical family (her mother is a Juilliard-trained cellist), Pitcairn began playing the violin at age three and made her debut with orchestra at 14. Her path led her to Los Angeles to study with preeminent violin professor Robert Lipsett at the University of Southern California. Her former teachers include Julian Meyer, Sylvia Ahramjian, Jascha Brodsky, Robert Lipsett and Shmuel Ashkenasi. She was a member of the distinguished faculty of both USC and the Colburn School for 10 years (2000-2010), taught at the Encore School for Strings, and is an alumna of the Marlboro Music Festival, the National Repertory Orchestra, Luzerne Music Center, Temple University’s Center for Gifted Young Musicians, the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra, the Meadowmount School, Point Counter Point, the Encore School for Strings, the YMF Debut Orchestra and the American Youth Symphony under the direction of Mehli Mehta. She served as concertmaster of the New West Symphony under the direction of Boris Brott for 11 years (2000-2011). With Maestro Brott, she appeared with the McGill Chamber Orchestra of Montréal, the National Academy Orchestra in Ontario and the New West Symphony. She has appeared in recital for the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and for a special event at the Aspen Music Festival with President and CEO Alan Fletcher and soloist Robert McDuffie. She believes strongly in philanthropy and is a frequent performer for charitable events such as the American Cancer Society, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, the Helping Hands and Hearts Foundation and the Nakashima Foundation for Peace.

A champion of new music, Pitcairn commissioned Sweden’s renowned composer Tommie Haglund to compose the violin concerto tone poem Hymnen an die Nacht (Hymns to the Night), receiving a Swedish Grammi nomination in 2009. Other commissions include a sonata for violin and piano by Russian composer David Finko and The Blue Vishuddha (2014) by Sara Carina Graef which was composed for her Fisher Center recital at Bard College.

Pitcairn made her debut with orchestra at age 14 performing the Saint-Saëns Concerto, and has since appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Academy of Music and at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in the year 2000 with the New York String Orchestra in her New York debut. She has since performed at Carnegie Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Kimmel Center, Saratoga Performing Arts Center, and the Fisher Center at Bard College. She has given performances of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra of China and with conductor Wagner Politschuk in São Paulo, Brazil. Under the baton of Finnish conductor Hannu Koivula, Pitcairn has performed the Barber Concerto with the Vaasa City Symphony, the Jönkopping Symphony of Sweden and given the premiere of eminent Swedish composer’s Hymnen an die Nacht with the Helsingborg Symphony. She gave a nationally televised broadcast of the Bruch Violin Concerto with the Classic FM Radio Symphony Orchestra of Bulgaria conducted by Maxim Eshkenazy. She has also concertized in Italy, France, Germany, the British Isles, Hungary, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, the French West Indies, Austria, Romania and the Czech Republic. She has appeared in recital at the Cayman Arts Festival with pianist Glen Inanga and with the Arkansas Philharmonic and the North Mississippi Symphonies conducted by Steven Byess. She has appeared with the Fort Collins Symphony conducted by Wes Kenney, the Allentown Symphony with Diane Wittry, the Bucks County Symphony, Ridgewood Symphony and Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestra of New York led by Gary Fagin, the Marin Symphony conducted by Alasdair Neale and the USC and Richardson Symphonies conducted by Anshel Brusilow. She performed the Brahms Double Concerto with Ronald Leonard, under the sbaton of Yehuda Gilad and Carlo Ponti, Jr. She has performed the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the San Luis Obispo Symphony music director Michael Nowak, and the Beethoven Violin Concerto with Lara Webber and the Livermore Symphony. In 2010, on the 20th anniversary of the auction of the Red Mendelssohn Stradivarius, she gave a commemorative recital in Cremona, Italy with pianist Igor Longato, whom she met at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1998. She has toured northern Italy with the TOCCATA-Tahoe Orchestra performing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and in 2017, she will tour Vienna, Salzburg and Prague, as well as Romania and Serbia. Also in 2017, she will perform The Red Violin Chaconne with Maestro Jung-Ho Pak and the Cape Symphony and record the Sibelius Violin Concerto which will be released together with the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.

Her discography includes the Tchaikovsky and Mozart A Major Concerti with the Slovenia Radio Television Orchestra, Hymnen an die Nacht (Hymns to the Night) by Tommie Haglund with the Helsingborg Symphony for Phono Suecia, the Bruch Scottish Fantasy and Sarasate Carmen Fantasy with the Sofia Philharmonic, the Beethoven and Bruch Concerti (2015), the Brahms and Mendelssohn Violin Concerti (2016) and the Sibelius Concerto (2017) with the Classic FM Radio Orchestra of Bulgaria conducted by Maxim Eshkenazy.

The “Red Mendelssohn” Stradivarius is fitted with Wittner Finetune-Pegs and travels in a titanium case by GEWA. Her favorite activities are skiing, tennis, horseback riding, wine tasting. For her concert schedule and history of the “Red Mendelssohn” Stradivarius violin, please visit redviolin.com.

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October 6

MICHAEL JOHNATHON’S SONGS OF RURAL AMERICA comes to the historic Ariel Opera House for a special concert featuring THE OHIO VALLEY SYMPHONY.

“Yes, I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can find his way by moonlight, and see the dawn before the rest of the world.” – Oscar Wilde

Among the throngs of musicians in the folk world, few have elevated “dreaming” to such a high art form as Michael Johnathon.  From composing the Woody Guthrie Opera to writing the Walden play, creating the national Song Farmers movement to producing the wildly successful broadcast of the WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour, solo concert tours of coffeehouses to recording his song The Dream about the earth at piece with a 61-piece orchestra and choirs in English, French, Spanish and Russian, his accomplishments can easily overshadow a very important point: Michael Johnathon is an excellent musician.

“Once upon a time, rural America was built on the music and conversation of families who relaxed at the end of the day playing music on their front porches,” says Johnathon from his log cabin home in Kentucky. “The front porch was the grand pulpit of every community, the gathering place for family, friends and neighbors. It was the greatest stage in the world, filled with musicians every evening singing together as the sun went down.”

He is quick to point out that America, as a community, has lost its sense of its own front porch.

“As soon as they invented TV and air conditioning, everybody fled inside,” he says.  “They don’t even build front porches on new homes any more. For the past 50 years, the great feng shui welcome of a new home was the garage door. The thing you leave by is what welcomes your friends.”

Among his many ongoing accomplishments is the sustained creation of an international, live audience syndicated broadcast called the WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour. The show airs on 515 radio stations from Australia to Boston to Dublin, Ireland. It also airs on American Forces Radio Network twice each weekend in 173 nations, every military base and US Naval ship in the world. The shows airs coast-to-coast in millions of TV homes as a public TV series. Now Friday and Wednesday’s on RFDTV.  What is especially striking about the production is that it is completely volunteer run and available free of charge to schools and home school families with lesson plans.

World Premiere Performance
It is the success of WoodSongs that makes the broadcast recording of Songs of Rural America so important.  It will be not only recorded for broadcast on nearly 600 public radio stations, it will also air on American Forces Radio Network in 173 nations plus be filmed for a public television TV special.

The concept behind this concert tour is to bring a sense of America’s front porch spirit onto classical orchestra stages nationwide. The concert at the historic Ariel-Ann Carson Dater Performing Arts Centre in Gallipolis, Ohio is the world premiere of the tour.

“I thought to myself, ‘How hard can it be for a folksinger to perform with classical musicians?’” he explains. “Well, it’s pretty hard.” Johnathon arranged the orchestration with Joshua Carter of Nashville TN, who works with Ben Folds and others to his credits. The concert will be conducted by Maestro Tim Berens.

The audience can expect a very surprising, rich and powerful selection of songs that will represent the passion and importance of the “front porch” spirit, once taken for granted across rural America.

“I’ll be there with my long neck banjo, my Martin guitar and about 40 new friends who are amazing classical musicians, engineers and six TV cameras,” says Johnathon. “I can’t tell you how exciting this will be.”

Songs of Rural America concert and broadcast taping are on sale now at the historic Ariel Opera House box office, 426 Second Avenue in Gallipolis Ohio, or online by clicking the Etix link on this page.

Visit: MichaelJohnathon.com/symphony, WoodSongs.com, WaldenPlay.com,

CaneyCreekMovie.com, WoodyGuthrieOpera.com

MEDIA – expanded bio at MichaelJohnathon.com

CONTACT – Loretta Sawyer, radio@woodsongs.com

November 3, 2018

Keitaro Harada is a dazzling presence on the podium and conducts the Cincinnati Symphony and around the world. He is bringing with him the stunning violin prodigy Christina Nam to perform Korngold’s lush Violin Concerto. Included in this November 3rd concert, Harada is presenting composer Matt Jackfert for a world premiere of two works.

Conductor Keitaro Harada

Conductor Keitaro Harada continues to be recognized at the highest levels for his artistic abilities and passion for musical excellence. As a three-time recipient of The Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award (2014, 2015, 2016), Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview (2013), the Seiji Ozawa Conducting Fellowship at Tanglewood Music Festival, a student of Lorin Maazel at Castleton Festival and Fabio Luisi at Pacific Music Festival, Harada’s credentials are exemplary.

In his third season as Associate Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops, Harada regularly assists Music Director Louis Langrée and conducts the CSO, POPS, and World Piano Competition, and assists James Conlon and Juanjo Mena for the May Festival. Keitaro also holds the position of Associate Conductor of the Arizona Opera.

With a growing schedule as an international guest conductor, Harada’s recent and coming seasons mark several high-profile engagements including the Pacific Music Festival by invitation of Valery Gergiev, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra and Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra in Japan and with Boise Philharmonic, West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, South Bend Symphony Orchestra, Charlotte Symphony and Music in the Mountains Festival in the USA. Most recently, he conducted Song from the Uproar for Cincinnati Opera, debuted with Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted a run of Bizet’s Carmen for Sofia National Opera in Bulgaria that will reprise with a Japan tour of the same production later in 2018.

Past seasons held an invitation to the prestigious Mahler Competition in Germany and his conducting debut in Japan with the New Japan Philharmonic in a sold out performance as well as his debut with Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. He led performances of Carmen for Arizona Opera and conducted concerts with Tucson Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Virginia Symphony, Sierra Vista Symphony, and Orquesta Filarmónica de Sonora. He held the position of Associate Conductor for Richmond Symphony from autumn of 2014 to spring of 2016.

In 2013, Harada was selected by the League of American Orchestras as one of only six conductors for the Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview, a prominent showcase that occurs biennially in an effort to promote gifted, emerging conductors to orchestra industry leaders. In 2012, Harada was a semi-finalist at the 9th Grzegorz Fitelberg International Competition for Conductors in Poland. In 2011, Harada was one of ten semi-finalists invited by Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony to participate in the First Chicago Symphony Orchestra Solti International Conducting Competition and he made his professional opera conducting debut with North Carolina Opera.

Early in his career, Harada served as Music Director of the Phoenix Youth Symphony. During his tenure, he elevated the organization’s profile, expanded their season; added challenging repertoire, and took the symphony on a European tour that culminated with a master class on the main stage of the Berlin Philharmonic.

A native of Tokyo, Japan, Harada is a graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy and Mercer University. He completed his formal conducting training at University of Arizona with Thomas Cockrell and Charles Bontrager. He has also studied under Christoph von Dohnányi, Robert Spano, Michael Tilson Thomas, Oliver Knussen, Herbert Blomstedt, Vladimir Ponkin, Adrian Gnam and Stefan Asbury. Harada champions creative programming, development of the orchestra as a part of a community’s cultural fabric, advancement of each musician he encounters, and responsibility as an artistic and civic leader.

Very early in his career, he was selected as a guest artist for National Public Radio’s From the Top and is featured as a favorite guest alumnus on their PBS television documentary. Arizona Public Broadcasting produced a documentary on the bright career of Keitaro titled: “Music…Language Without Words” for the television series AZ Illustrated in 2013. Harada’s general manager is JEJ Artists. Engagements in Asia are managed by Japan Arts. http://kharada.com

Christina Jihee Nam, violinist

Since her solo debut with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at age 9, virtuoso violinist Christina Jihee Nam (age 15) has concertized around the world appearing in recitals and as soloist with numerous orchestras across the globe.

Recipient of many accolades both at international and national competitions, Ms. Nam recently received second prize in the esteemed Cooper International Violin Competition where she appeared with Maestro Jahja Ling and the Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. Other prizes include semi-finalist at the 8th Louis Spohr International Competition in Weimar, Germany (2016) and top prizes and recognition from the Overture Awards, Louisville Orchestra Young Artists, Sejong Music, Clark J. Haines Memorial, Jack and Lucille Wonnell Young Artists, Lakeland Young Artists, Clifton Music Club, Cincinnati Symphony Club and the Belew Young Artist Competition. Christina holds the distinct honor of being a two-time winner of the Philadelphia International Music Festival Competition. Recently Christina received invitations to perform in two major competition’s concerts, as semi-finalist in the Johansen International Competition in March (Washington, D.C.) and the Junior category of the prestigious Menuhin Competition in April (Geneva, Switzerland).

Nam’s solo career has included appearances with many symphony orchestras across the country. In addition to her performances with the prominent orchestras of Cincinnati and Cleveland, she has performed with the Great Wall Soloists, Seven Hills Sinfonietta, Miami Valley Symphony, Blue Ash-Montgomery Symphony, Wright State University Symphony, Lakeland Civic Orchestra, Butler Philharmonic, and the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra. She has also appeared as soloist with the Starling Chamber Orchestra numerous times, most notably in 2011 at the National Convention of American String Teachers Association in Atlanta and in 2016 as soloist on the SCO’s China Tour. Her credits internationally also include an invitation in 2012 to perform in the very concert that inaugurated the Harpa International Music Academy in Reykjavik, Iceland.

A devoted chamber musician, Christina has collaborated with the incomparable Rohan De Silva and worked with members of the American, Ying, Cavani, Great Wall, and the Ariel string quartets. A born leader, Ms. Nam serves as the concertmaster of the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Walnut Hills High Chamber Orchestra, and the Starling Chamber Orchestra.

In the past she has spent her summers traveling to various festivals at home and abroad. From the Great Wall International Music Academy in Beijing, Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine, and the Cincinnati Young Artist Chamber Music Festival at home in Cincinnati to the Insbrook Institute in Missouri, Meadowmount School of Music in New York, and the Pacific Region International Summer Music Academy in Canada.

Her recording and broadcast credits include two appearances on NPR’s radio show “From the Top” and PBS/CET’s “Showcase with Barbara Kellar”. Nam can be heard on Volumes I and II of the Violin Recital Album of the Sassmanshaus Tradition published by Bärenreiter.

Christina started playing the violin when she was only 4 years old and began studying with her current teacher, renowned pedagogue Kurt Sassmanshaus, at the age of 7. In addition to her studies with Prof. Sassmanshaus, Nam studies with Associate Concertmaster of The Cleveland Orchestra, Amy J. Lee and has worked with Jan Mark Sloman of the Cleveland Institute of Music.

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December 1, 2018

Gallipolis’ own Steven Huang will be leading the symphony for the annual Christmas Show! on December 1st with a heartwarming selection of your holiday favorites. Soprano Melissa Brobeck and tenor Kelly Burns will add to the beautiful sounds of your favorite selections. This is one of the most popular concerts of the year, so be sure to purchase extra tickets with your subscription so friends and relatives can sit close by your season seats!

Conductor Steven Huang

Maestro Steven Huang has conducted orchestras and operas across the country and throughout the world. At the age of twenty-one, he served as Music Director of the Bach Society Orchestra of Harvard University, where he received his undergraduate degree. While at Harvard, Mr. Huang also directed the Lowell House Opera (the oldest continuously running opera company in New England), in a critically acclaimed production of Kurt Weill’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.

Mr. Huang has worked with musicians around the world, including California, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts, Ohio, Haiti, and Romania. He has held the position of Music Director of the University of Chicago Chamber Orchestra, the Central Illinois Youth Symphony, the Gilbert and Sullivan Players of Chicago, and the Bradley University Orchestra. In America, he has guest conducted professional ensembles such as the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, the Lake Shore Symphony (IL), and the Four Seasons Symphony (CA). Abroad, he has led the National Philharmonic and “Organ Hall” Chamber Orchestra of the Republic of Moldova; the Pitesti Philharmonic of Romania; the Tiraspol Philharmonic; the New Symphony Orchestra of Bulgaria; the Attergau Kultursommer Orchestra in Austria, where he conducted for their twentieth anniversary concert; the Jeunesses Musicales Festival Orchestra in Romania; and L’Orchestre Philharmonique de Sainte Trinité, Haiti, where he has volunteered since 2000.

Mr. Huang has studied conducting in Europe as well as the United States with such teachers as Dumitru Goia, Michael Jinbo, Kenneth Kiesler, Gustav Meier, and Rossen Milanov. He earned the Master of Music degree in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Michigan, where he was the recipient of the Marian W. and Ernest A. Jones Conducting Scholarship. Huang twice received the Herbert von Karajan Fellowship for Young Conductors for study at the Salzburg Festival, and the Fulbright Fellowship for study at the National University of Music in Bucharest, where he received an Artist’s Diploma. Mr. Huang has also studied with Mr. Leonard Slatkin at the National Conducting Institute.

Mr. Huang has served on faculty at Ohio University since 2004. He appears as conductor on two professional recordings, “Sticks & Stones: Music for Percussion and Strings” and “Double Life: Music for Strings by Rozsa” (Equilibrium). Recent engagements include the Brasov Philharmonic (Romania), Tantrum Theater’s production of “Little Shop of Horrors,” for which he won the 2017 Theatre Roundtable award for Excellence in Music Direction; North Carolina State Honors Orchestra, and recurring appearances at the “Queen Violin” International Festival in the Republic of Moldova. He is also Director of the nonprofit educational organization International Conducting Masterclasses, Inc., which sponsors conducting seminars in Europe and the U.S.

Melissa Brobeck, soprano

Melissa Brobeck has been described as a “riveting presence” with an “electrifying singing voice” who always “brings plenty of memorable pizzazz” to the stage. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Melissa is an accomplished musician who sings with a nuanced expressivity and emotional authenticity. She has performed in venues both big and small across the U.S. and in Europe. The Asheville Citizen-Times says, “One part Lily Tomlin, one part Carol Burnett, with a singing voice better than them both.”

Melissa is a master teacher at Athens Community Music School, where she teaches Contemporary Commercial Music and classical
vocal styles.

Kelly Burns, tenor

Kelly Burns is an active performer of opera, musical theater, recital and concert works throughout the United States and Canada. His solo concert and operatic repertoire spans over 400 years of music, ranging from Claudio Monteverdi to living composers.

Among his repertoire are leading and supporting roles from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Die Zauberflöte, and Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Donizetti’s Elisir d’amore, and others, and numerous tenor solos. Kelly performs with LancasterChorale, the premiere professional choir in central Ohio.

Kelly makes his home in Athens, Ohio where he teaches applied voice, vocal pedagogy, and diction at Ohio University.

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September 8, 2018
at 7:30 p.m.

Tim Berens has graced our stage several times as an OVS soloist, but on September 8th he shows us another facet of his talents as he returns to conduct a fabulous all-Beethoven program. He brings with him colleague Michael Chertock to spark some fireworks with The Emperor piano concerto.

Guitarist, arranger, conductor Tim Berens

Tim Berens’s multi-faceted career gives testament to his lifelong quest to learn, perform and write music. So far, his venture has led him through the worlds of classical guitar, jazz guitar, orchestral guitar, arranging, orchestration, composition, and conducting.

During his years as the guitarist for the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, Tim played guitar, banjo, mandolin and bouzouki on concerts, recordings, television programs, and tours. Beginning in the late 1990’s, Tim began arranging for the CPO, eventually becoming the orchestra’s principal arranger.

Tim’s arrangements caught the ears of others and he began receiving commissions from many leading conductors and major orchestras. His arrangements are performed hundreds of times per year by orchestras throughout the United States and abroad, in venues from Carnegie Hall to the Kennedy Center to the Hollywood Bowl. Tim’s arrangements receive praise from conductors, musicians, librarians, management, and listeners.

In 2010, the desire to continue learning led Tim to return to school to study conducting. Two intensive years later, he earned a Masters Degree in Orchestral Conducting. As he conducted the music of great composers like Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Shostakovich, his studies of their scores enriched his skills as an orchestrator.

As a young student studying classical guitar at CCM, Tim took every opportunity to play jazz and other styles. This work prepared him well for the audition for the Cincinnati Pops. Over the following years, other orchestras began hiring Tim, and he performed with more than 20 orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. He played thousands of services for conductor Erich Kunzel.

Tim was featured as a soloist on many of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra’s concerts, recordings and television broadcasts, most notably when he transcribed the piano part from “Rhapsody in Blue” for guitar.

Throughout his professional career Tim has performed regularly at jazz clubs, releasing 4 jazz recordings on the Red Mark label under his own name along the way, and he has continued working as a classical guitarist, performing Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez” to great acclaim.

Tim’s most nerve wracking performance took place in 1975. Not even the duet he performed with Kristin Chenoweth at Carnegie Hall induced more gut-wrenching performance anxiety than his band’s performance of Smoke on the Water in the Van Buren Junior High School Talent Show.

Pianist Michael Chertock

Michael Chertock has fashioned a successful career as an orchestral soloist, collaborating with conductors such as James Conlon, Jaime Laredo, Keith Lockhart, Erich Kunzel and Andrew Litton. His many orchestral appearances include solo performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, l’Orchestre Symphonique du Montreal, the Toronto Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Naples Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony, the Chattanooga Symphony, the Utah Symphony, the Oregon Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony and the Dayton Philharmonic. Chertock has toured Asia with the Boston Pops and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestras. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1999 with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, performing Duke Ellington’s New World A’Comin’.

In June 2005, Mr. Chertock performed the world premiere of a work by Todd Machover for hyperklavier and orchestra with computerized visual accompaniment, commissioned by the Boston Pops Orchestra expressly for Mr. Chertock. He recorded the piece, called Jeux Deux, in Denmark in 2007. Last May, Mr. Chertock traveled to Sofia, Bulgaria for the world premiere and recording of a new work written especially for him by Roger Davis.

Mr. Chertock first performed publicly at the age of 11, and at age 14 performed on live television in Guam. At 17, he performed the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 with Andrew Litton. He has garnered numerous awards at major competitions, among them the top prize in the 1989 Joanna Hodges International Piano Competition (Brahms Division,) and the grand prize in the 1993 St. Charles International Piano Competition. He also shared the silver medal in the 1991 World Piano Competition of the American Music Scholarship Association. He received the Rildia B. O’Bryon Cliburn Scholarship in 1986.

In 1994, Mr. Chertock released his first CD, a collection of his original arrangements of music from movies entitled Cinematic Piano. Since then, he has recorded three more discs with Telarc: Palace of the Winds, Christmas at the Movies and Love At the Movies, which have been praised for their lush, original arrangements and exquisite technical facility.

Mr. Chertock is the conductor of the Blue Ash-Montgomery Symphony, located in suburban Cincinnati, Ohio, and he frequently composes and arranges music for the orchestra’s concerts. He also serves as Artistic Director of Linton Music’s Peanut Butter and Jam Sessions, an interactive music series geared toward children ages 2 to 5. When not on tour, Mr. Chertock also serves as principal keyboardist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. In June of 2004 Mr. Chertock was appointed Assistant Professor of piano at the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, where he received his Master’s Degree as a student of Frank Weinstock.

Mr. Chertock makes his home in Cincinnati with his wife Maaike, son Joshua and daughter Maria. When he’s not on the road, you can often find him playing piano and organ for services at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church.

Repetoire

In 1987 Lora Lynn Snow had a vision to form a professional orchestra and invited her friend and colleague Ray Fowler to be the Music Director. Over the years they created a wonderful organization that has stood the test of time and the OVS is now entering our 29th season. Though Maestro Fowler moves to Director Emeritus following his retirement at the close of this season, the symphony will continue bringing outstanding live professional performances to the southeastern Ohio region.

The 2018-19 Season will see on the Ariel stage five exciting maestros conducting The Ohio Valley Symphony and featured soloists for each of the subscription concerts.

In addition to The Ohio Valley Symphony’s regular subscription season, we will be performing with folk singer Michael Johnathon in the world premiere of his new televised show “The Songs of Rural America” to be recorded live on the stage of the Ariel Opera House! Subscibers who purchase tickets to this once-in-a-lifetime event will receive a 10% discount off the regular price – just order the tickets on your subscription form and we’ll make sure you get your regular season seats for the concert if you return your order by May 31st!

The Ariel-Ann Carson Dater Cultural & Performing Arts Centre and The Ohio Valley Symphony are 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations, Federal Tax ID# 31-1273779