Arts & Culture

UK Orchestra to Showcase Concerto Competition Winner Pianist Yuri Kim

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 25, 2015)  The University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of John Nardolillo, takes the stage this Friday with a variety of compositions that showcase the diverse talent of its own student musicians.

The concert will feature one of UK School of Music's own, Yuri Kim, winner of the UK Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition, playing music by George Gershwin. The concert, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 27, in the Singletary Center for the Arts Concert Hall.

Fresh off its dramatic live presentation of “2001: A Space Odyssey” with the UK Chorale, the orchestra will begin the concert with Gyorgy Ligeti’s “Atmosphères,” featured in the film. Next, the orchestra will back up Yuri Kim as she plays George Gershwin’s Concerto in F for piano and orchestra. The concert will conclude with German composer Robert Schumann’s uplifting Symphony No. 2.

The UK Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition presents a prestigious opportunity for UK music students to perform a solo concerto with the orchestra. Artistic excellence is the primary criterion, but students must also be fulltime music majors and prepare the entire concerto. A panel of judges composed of artists from outside UK reviews excerpts performed by each contestant and selects the top four to return and play their entire concerto. From these finalists, one to three winners are chosen to perform with the orchestra in the Concerto Competition Concert.

Yuri Kim, a native of South Korea, holds a master’s degree in piano performance from UK and a master’s degree in piano pedagogy from Campbellsville University, where she graduated with the Outstanding Graduate Student Award and was a member of the honor society, Pi Kappa Lambda. Kim earned the certificate in piano pedagogy at Moscow's Tchaikovsky Conservatory. Regionally, she won the Music Teachers National Association Young Artist Piano Competition in Kentucky and advanced to the Southern division. Kim is currently pursuing a doctorate in piano performance at UK School of Music, where she studies with Professor Irina Voro and serves as a teaching assistant in "Introductory Piano."

Founded in 1918, the UK Symphony Orchestra is regarded as one of the nation’s best college orchestras. The 100-member all-student orchestra presents 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. The orchestra regularly performs with world-renowned concert artists including Itzhak Perlman, Sarah Chang, Gil Shaham, Mark O’Connor, Lynn Harrell, Marvin Hamlisch, Denyce Graves, Lang Lang, Ronan Tynan, Natasha Paremski and Arlo Guthrie. The orchestra performs in the concert hall at the Singletary Center for the Arts and on tour, including concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York in 2007 and 2010, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in 2009.

The UK Symphony Orchestra also collaborates yearly with UK Opera Theatre and has recently presented "Porgy and Bess," "La Bohème," "Die Fledermaus," "Carmen," "La Traviata" and "Madama Butterfly." Over the last three years, they have also begun an active outreach program bringing classical music to all corners of the Commonwealth. To date, they have performed for more than 10,000 students as part of this new initiative. In addition to live performances, UK's orchestra is one of the only collegiate orchestra programs to record for with Naxos, the world’s largest classical music label.

The UK School of Music at the UK College of Fine Arts 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.

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