Friday & Saturday, May 8-9
8 PM
 
Symphony Number One presents its concert debut, featuring harpist Jordan Thomas and flutist Raoul Cho on May 8 & 9, 2015 at 8 pm. The duo will be joining the orchestra for Mozart's Concerto for Flute and Harp. The program will open with Anton Webern's one and only symphony, his Symphony, Op. 21, scored sparingly for pairs of clarinets and horns, solo harp, and strings. 

Conducted by Jordan Randall Smith, the two works will serve as a prelude to the World Premiere of Pittsburgh composer Mark Fromm's Symphony No. 1. The instrumentation will combine the forces used for Mozart and Webern, to which Fromm has added bassoon and saxophone. Fromm, a bassoonist himself, has just completed and premiered another major work, a concerto for contrabassoon. Smith first collaborated with Fromm while guest conducting Pittsburgh's new music ensemble Alia Musica, where Fromm is both a bassoonist and composer.
 
Click here for more information about Symphony Number One and visit their Kickstarter program.

Meet the Artists

Award-winning conductor Jordan Randall Smith was Co-founder and Artistic Director of the Dallas Festival of Modern Music and Assistant Conductor of the Peabody Opera Theater. According to the Ft. Worth Music Examiner, Jordan, "drove an intensity in the air," leading the festival’s ensemble in residence, Ars Nova Dallas, in a series of performances of Schoenberg's landmark Pierrot Lunaire. New York Philharmonic Music Director Allen Gilbert called Jordan’s conducting of Boulez’ Le Marteau sans Maître, “impressive.” 
 
Smith received a prestigious Bruno Walter Fellowship at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in 2010 where he studied with Marin Alsop, Gustav Meier, and Jennifer Higdon and conducted the festival orchestra in concert. Jordan formerly served as Apprentice Conductor of the Dallas Bach Society Orchestra and Chorus. He has mentored hundreds of young musicians in ensembles across the country including the Baltimore Symphony Youth Orchestra and the Cross Timbers Youth Orchestra. Currently a Doctor of Musical Arts candidate in conducting at the Peabody Conservatory, Smith is a student of Gustav Meier, Markand Thakar, and Marin Alsop.
 
For more about Jordan, visit www.jordanrsmith.com.

Mark Stanley Fromm (b.1982) is a composer, teacher, and bassoon and saxophone player from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His works have won numerous awards and have been performed worldwide, including in Nashville, New York City, Ottawa, London, Santiago, Doha, and Bangkok. His music has been praised for its natural shape, structure, and lyricism. Much of his music is locally inspired, including commissions for "Steel, Slag, and Silicon" by the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society, "Frick Gates" for the Pittsburgh Philharmonic Orchestra, and "Silent Spring" for Trillium Ensemble. His most recent work, "Lingua Cosmica," is a concerto for contrabassoon, commissioned by the Carnegie Mellon University Contemporary Ensemble upon their acquisition of a new instrument.
 
He currently plays principal bassoon with the Pittsburgh Philharmonic Orchestra and is an active composer and performer member of Alia Musica Pittsburgh, a group dedicated to the performance of new music by local composers. In 2014 he joined the faculty of Pittsburgh CAPA (Creative and Performing Arts) 6-12 School, where he teaches music theory and composition and conducts the Electroacoustic Ensemble. He holds degrees from Carnegie Mellon (BFA), McGill University (MMus), and The University of Pittsburgh (Ph.D.). For more information about Mark and to hear some of his music, visit www.markfromm.net.

Harpist Jordan Thomas has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra and was invited to perform at the Kennedy Center as an outstanding young artist for their Conservatory Marathon Project. He can be heard regularly in solo recitals through the Baltimore Basilica Harp Recital series (which he also directs). He has been featured on several professional recordings, most recently with the Keystone State Boys Choir in a performance tour of the Britten “Ceremony of Carols”, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the composer’s birth.  Jordan’s performance was heralded  as “stunning and elegant.” 

Raoul Cho is pursuing an Artist Diploma Degree at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University as a student of Marina Piccinini where he also received both his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees. Born in South Korea, Raoul began playing the flute at age 11 under Jae Young Bae and continued his studies in Europe at the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst under the late Wolfgang Schultz and Raffael Leone. He won the Ewha University & Kyung-Hyang News Paper Competition and Seoul National Flute Association Competition in Korea. Apart from traditional repertoire, Raoul takes a particular interest in baroque music. He is also dedicated to contemporary music, regularly performing new solo and chamber works by Peabody’s composition students.