Concerto/Aria Competition winners featured with SFA Symphony Orchestra

NACOGDOCHES, TEXAS - Four students from the Stephen F. Austin State University School of Music will be the featured soloists during the SFA Symphony Orchestra's annual Concerto/Aria Winners concert at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 12, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

Each fall, SFA music students enter the School of Music's annual competition, and the finalists have the unique opportunity of performing with a full orchestra, explained Gene H. Moon, director of orchestral activities at SFA and the Symphony Orchestra's director.

Student soloists are cellist Eman Gallehdari-Chalshotori, Oklahoma City senior, performing Pytor Tchiakovsky's "Variations on a Rococo Theme," and soprano Monica Lancaster, Sulphur Springs graduate student, singing "Steal me, sweet thief" from Gian Carlo Menotti's "The Old Maid and the Thief."

Also, trombonist Thomas Mensch, Tyler graduate student, will present Launy Grondhal's "Trombone Concerto," and marimbist Chris Vasquez, Port Isabel junior, will play the first movement of Paul Creston's "Marimba Concerto."

Also included on the program is a presentation of the first movement of "Concerto No. 5 in D Major, Op. 22" by Fritz Seitz, performed by select SFA Music Preparatory violin students of Brenda Josephsen.

The orchestra will open the concert with the overture to W.A. Mozart's "The Magic Flute" and close with Ludwig van Beethoven's "Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92," a work which Moon calls "monumental."

The concert is a joint presentation of the SFA College of Fine Arts, School of Music and Orchestra Series. It is sponsored in part by Nacogdoches Memorial Hospital and the Wedgeworth-Wright Endowment for the Arts.

Cole Concert Hall is located in the Tom and Peggy Wright Music Building, 2210 Alumni Dr.

Tickets are $12 for adults, $8 for seniors and $5 for students. For tickets or more information, please visit www.sfasu.edu/finearts or call (936) 468-6407 or (888) 240-ARTS.