PEACH WEEKENDER

Toledo Symphony to present Verdi’s ‘Requiem’

Giordano Bellincampi will conduct the Toledo Symphony Classics concerts at 8 p.m. March 21 and 22 in the Peristyle.

The Toledo Symphony’s next Classics concerts will be all about Italian composer Giuseppi Verdi as the symphony, with choirs from Bowling Green State University and soloists, performs the composer’s Requiem.

Performances will be at 8 p.m. March 21 and 22 in the Toledo Museum of Art Peristyle.

Giordano Bellincampi will return to town to conduct. Soloists will be soprano Amy Yekel, mezzo Stacey Rishoi, tenor Vale Rideout, and baritone Stephen West. Preparing the BGSU choirs are Mark Munson, Sandra Stegman, and Timothy Cloeter.

First presented in Milan, this monumental setting of the Roman Catholic funeral mass was composed in memory of Alessandro Manzoni, an Italian poet and novelist whom Verdi admired. The premiere was on May 22, 1874.

The work is notable for memorable melodies and over-the-top dynamic effects.

Bellincampi is general music director of orchestras in Milan, Germany, and Norway. There and in other venues as guest, he conducts symphony concerts and operas.

In Toledo, he has conducted the 2006 performance of the Berlioz Te Deum, and in 2008 led the Strauss tone poem Also Sprach Zarathustra.

The soloists are mostly known to local audiences.

Yekel recently earned raves at the Toledo Opera’s Ladies in Red gala. Before that she made her local opera debut in the title role of Turandot. Rishoi starred in the Toledo Opera’s production of Ariadne auf Naxos.

This will be Rideout’s local debut, but he has garnered much applause for operatic and major choral performances across the United States. As chair of the vocal department at the University of Michigan, West has appeared previously in Toledo, most recently in Turandot.

Tickets for the Verdi Requiem are $22-$52 at 419-246-8000 or www.toledosymphony.com.

● Young virtuosi will be in the spotlight at 4 p.m. Sunday during the Toledo Symphony Youth Orchestra Side-by-Side Concert in the Peristyle. This annual event brings professional symphony players to sit with high school musicians.

Winners of the 2013 Toledo Symphony League Young Artists Competition, who will perform with Toledo Symphony players led by resident conductor Jeffrey Pollock, are tympanist Carter Adams, violinist Emma Sandberg, and pianist Isabella Hu.

Adams, a Perrysburg High School upperclassman and first place winner, studies piano, cello, percussion, and theory/​composition with local musicians. He plays piano, organ, and percussion in high school, regional, and statewide music groups. He will perform the third movement of Werner Thärichen’s Konzert für Pauken und Orchester, Op. 34.

Sandberg, who was inspired by watching Itzhak Perlman play violin on Sesame Street, studies violin at the University of Michigan and performs with several regional Michigan orchestras. She has participated in string performance programs in the region and nationally, including at Carnegie Hall, and was second prize winner. She will play the first movement of the Sibelius Violin Concerto.

Hu also has performed at Carnegie after winning the 2010 and 2007 World Piano Competition. She has earned further awards, scholarships, and honors throughout the Midwest and studies piano in the Detroit area. Hu, third place winner in the local competition, will perform the Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1, first movement.

Also on the program for the side-by-side component will be Rakoczy March by Berlioz and Symphony No. 8, movement four, by Dvorak. Kenneth Thompson and Wasim Hawary will conduct the youth orchestras. The Toledo Symphony and Pollock will open the program with Wagner’s Prelude to Die Meistersinger.

The Symphony League’s 2014 competition is scheduled for May 31 at Symphony Space, 1838 Parkwood Ave., across from the Toledo Museum of Art. Rules and requirements are available at www.toledosymphonyleague.com.

Tickets for the concert are $20 in advance at 419-246-8000 or www.toledosymphony.com or $25 at the door. Tickets for children are $5.

● Clarinetist Richard Hawkins will be on the BGSU campus Monday for a master class at 6:30 p.m. Hawkins, who teaches at Oberlin Conservatory, will work with students who won the Douglas Wayland Chamber Music competition. He will prep some of them for a free recital at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Wildwood Preserve Metropark Manor House.

A production of Igor Stravinsky’s L'Histoire du Soldat (The Soldier's Tale) by BGSU music faculty is planned for 8 p.m. March 19-20 in the Donnell Theatre of the Wolfe Center for the Arts. Admission is free.

The BGSU Chamber Orchestra of the Philharmonia will present a concert for young peole at 11 a.m. March 22 in Bryan Recital Hall of the Moore Musical Arts Center. Tickets are $2-$4.

● The St. Tim’s Discovers music series will continue at 7:30 p.m. Sunday in St. Timothy Episcopal Church, 871 E. Boundary St., Perrysburg. Guest performing group will be the Wooster Chorus from Wooster College, directed by Lisa Wong. Admission is free.

● First Presbyterian Church of Maumee will present a dance and drama troupe from Payap University, Chiang Mai, Thailand, at 6 p.m. March 21 in the church, 200 E. Broadway. The performers are staff members of the Christian Communications Institute at the university. The performance is free.

● Plans for the Toledo Symphony’s CHAT 14 are under way, a July 22-25 excursion to the Chautauqua Institution, a historic summer program in arts, culture, and spiritual practice on Lake Chautauqua in western New York.

This year’s theme will be the American West, and lectures, seminars, discussions, and concerts will be organized around it. Frank X. Walker, poet laureate of Kentucky, will be among featured lecturers, and there will be concerts by the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina Dance Theatre, and the optional performance of Molly Smith Metzler’s play, The May Queen.

The trip includes luxury coach transportation, double room and meals in the Athenaeum Hotel, and three full-day passes to Chautauqua. Cost is $1,125 per person double occupancy, with a single room surcharge of $120.

A security deposit of $100 is required with application. For more information, contact Ellen Critchley Pittman at 419-418-0024 or ecritchley@toledosymphony.com.

● Kudos to Spencer Hack, a Toledo dancer who has been accepted into the apprentice program of the National Ballet of Canada.

Young Hack started his career at Ballet Theatre of Toledo and has been a student at the National Ballet of Canada school for several years.

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