THE CHRISTMAS SHOW! 2018

December 1, 2018
at 7:30 p.m.

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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