UK Orchestra, Choirs End Season With Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 21, 2016) — The University of Kentucky's Symphony Orchestra and Choirs will close their season with the "symphony to end all symphonies" Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. The concert, which also includes music by Igor Stravinsky performed with soloist and Lexington native Nathan Cole, will begin 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 22, in the Singletary Center for the Arts. The concert is free and open to the public.

The concert will begin with a performance of Stravinsky's Violin Concerto in D. The neoclassical work written for American violinist Samuel Dushkin in 1931 will be performed with Cole, first associate concertmaster of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Nathan Cole performs at ArtistWorks booth at NAMM 2014.

Cole, who joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2011, has appeared as guest concertmaster with the orchestras of Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Houston, Ottawa, Seattle and Oregon. He was previously a member of the Chicago Symphony and principal second violin of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Cole made his debut with the Louisville Orchestra at the age of 10 while studying with Donna Wiehe.

After eight years working with UK Professor of Violin Daniel Mason, Cole enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music. In addition to his studies there with Pamela Frank, Felix Galimir, Ida Kavafian and Jaime Laredo, Cole formed the Grancino String Quartet, debuting in New York’s Weill Hall. Several summers at Marlboro enriched his love of chamber music. While in Chicago, Cole taught at Roosevelt University and coached the Chicago Civic Orchestra. He is currently on the faculty at the Colburn School for the Performing Arts, with classes at the Colburn Conservatory and University of Southern California. Cole's articles and photographs have appeared in Strings, Symphony and Chamber Music magazines. He is an online teaching artist with ArtistWorks. The Nathan Cole School of Violin includes a video curriculum of all major orchestral excerpts, plus concertos, etudes and fundamental lessons.

Fittingly, the UK Symphony Orchestra and UK Choir's season will end with Beethoven's masterpiece, Symphony No. 9, written in the composer's final and more experimental period of output. In the epic work, Beethoven expanded the forces of the orchestra to include auxiliary instruments like piccolo and contrabassoon in the woodwinds, trombones and additional French horns in the brass, and bass drum, triangle and cymbals in the percussion section. This large orchestra offered the composer an extended palette from which to paint his musical pictures, and would build the foundation for the romantic symphonists to come. The symphony's final movement is recognizable to audiences worldwide in Beethoven's use of "Ode to Joy," an ode written by Friedrich Schiller.

Adding their voices to this work is UK Choirs, comprised of UK Chorale, UK Choristers UK Men’s Chorus and UK Women’s Choir, as well as four soloists: soprano and UK graduate student Stafford Hartman; mezzo-soprano Magdalena Wór; tenor and UK alumnus Jeremy Cady; and bass and UK doctoral student André Campelo.

To hear more about this concert, visit WUKY online at http://wuky.org/post/uk-symphony-orchestra-takes-stravinsky-beethoven.

The UK Choirs fosters excellence in music, service and comradeship. Striving to blend diverse voices into one choir that achieves the highest level of professionalism and musicianship. Through unparalleled discipline and dedication, the UK Choirs proudly extends its reach beyond the boundaries of UK campus and into the Bluegrass community, country and world.

The UK Symphony Orchestra is a 100-member all-student orchestra presenting more than 50 concerts each year, including classical, chamber and education concerts. The group is made up of undergraduate and graduate students from across the United States, Asia, South America and Europe. Under the direction of John Nardolillo, the UK Symphony Orchestra has enjoyed great success accumulating recording credits and sharing the stage with such acclaimed international artists as Itzhak Perlman, Lynn Harrell and Mark O'Connor, as well as the Boston Pops. In addition to its own concerts, UK Symphony Orchestra provides accompaniment for much of the UK Opera Theatre season. UK's orchestra is one of a very select group of university orchestras under contract with Naxos, the world's largest classical recording label.

The UK Symphony Orchestra and UK Choirs are housed at the UK School of Music at UK College of Fine Arts. The school has garnered a national reputation for high-caliber education in opera, choral and instrumental music performance, as well as music education, composition, and theory and music history.

UK is the University for Kentucky. At UK, we are educating more students, treating more patients with complex illnesses and conducting more research and service than at any time in our 150-year history. To read more about the UK story and how you can support continued investment in your university and the Commonwealth, go to: uky.edu/uk4ky. #uk4ky #seeblue

MEDIA CONTACT: Whitney Hale, 859-257-8716; whitney.hale@uky.edu