TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The University of Alabama School of Music proudly announces its Celebrity Series concert schedule for 2005-06. This season’s four offerings are the Emerson String Quartet, the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, violinist Joshua Bell and Mark O’Connor’s Appalachia Waltz Trio.

All four performances are sponsored by the Gloria Narramore Moody Foundation, which marks the 17th year the Moody Foundation has brought internationally acclaimed talent to the University and underwritten the performances of world-class performers.

All performances are held in the Concert Hall of the Moody Music Building on the UA campus at 7:30 p.m., unless otherwise noted. Celebrity Series subscriptions are $72 and $55. Single tickets prices for the concerts are $22 and $15 for general admission and $7 for students. They are available for purchase at the box office at 205/348-7111.

This season’s offerings are:

Emerson String Quartet
Sept. 30, 2005 at 7:30 p.m.

Emerson String Quartet

Although formed during the American bicentennial, the Emerson String Quartet’s four members have been playing together since 1979. To keep their sound fresh and vibrant, Eugene Drucker and Phillip Setzer alternate as first violin. Another innovation by the group has the two violinists and violist Lawrence Dutton stand while playing; cellist David Finckel performs from a podium. Using this radical stance and positioning themselves farther apart on stage gives the musicians greater projection while providing greater clarity to the music.

Last year the Emerson String Quartet was awarded the Avery Fisher Prize. Their selection underscores their strengths as individual instrumentalists, as previously only soloists were eligible, and highlights their collective achievements as recognized by six Grammy awards. The quartet is the only chamber ensemble to win the Avery Fisher Prize for best classical recording and they have received it twice in 28 years.

Frank Moody Memorial Concert with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra
Justin Brown, conductor and Daniel Szasz, violin
Oct. 16, 2005 at 3 p.m.

Justin Brown

Daniel Szasz

Established as one of Britain’s leading young conductors, Justin Brown has worked with most of that country’s top orchestras. He is a familiar figure in Europe, conducting in Scandinavia, Russia, Germany, France and Luxembourg, and his career has taken him worldwide to Israel, Singapore, Taipei and Australia.

Brown studied at Cambridge University and at Tanglewood with Seiji Ozawa and Leonard Bernstein.

Recent engagements included debuts in Asia with the Tokyo Philharmonic and Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestras and in Europe with the Oslo and Bergen Philharmonic Orchestras. Brown made his highly successful conducting debut in America with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra.

Violinist and ASO concertmaster Daniel Szasz was born in Romania. At the age of eight he played his first solo recital, and at 13 he performed his first concerto with a professional orchestra. Six years later, while still a student at the Gheorghe Dima Music Academy, he toured extensively, recorded and performed as a soloist with one of his country’s top orchestras.

Szasz is a winner of the Public Prize at the prestigious Vittorio Gui International Chamber Music Competition in Florence, Italy. He has participated in many music festivals, including those in Graz, Austria; Sopron, Hungary; the Blossom of Ohio; Chautauqua, New York and the New Hampshire Music Festival.

Joshua Bell, violin
March 11, 2006 at 7:30 p.m.

Joshua Bell

At home as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestra leader and collaborator with MIT’s Tod Machover on the invention of a hyperviolin and electronically enhanced bow, Joshua Bell’s talent has proved exceptionally varied. His performance selections are equally varied - from arrangements of compositions by Couperin to those of Bernstein.

Whether it’s a concerto written for him or a cadenza he has written, Bell plays his 1713 Gibson ex Huberman violin with technical skill, artistic grace and sensitive interpretation that fulfill his promise as a child prodigy. How poetic that the musician who performed the music of a fictional red violin in an Academy Award winning film now plays the very Stradivarius that inspired the movie.

Mark O’Connor’s Appalachia Waltz Trio with Carol Cook and Natalie Haas
April 15, 2006 at 7:30 p.m.

Appalachia Waltz Trio

The Appalachia Waltz Trio seems an unlikely name for a chamber ensemble unless you know that Mark O’Connor is the foremost practitioner of the American school of string playing - a phrase he uses to describe a performance style that melds the aspects of several centuries of American musical culture with the European classical tradition.

Violinist Carol Cook and cellist Natalie Haas complete the trio who play the music O’Connor created for “Appalachia Waltz” and “Appalachian Journey,” his recording projects with Yo-Yo Ma and Edger Meyer. As composer, violinist and fiddler, O’Connor acknowledges his mentors Benny Thomasson and Stephane Grappelli, but he has created a distinctive genre that is unmistakably his own.

The UA School of Music is part of the College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest public liberal arts college in the state with 6,600 students and 360 faculty. Students from the college have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships, and memberships on the “USA Today” Academic All American Team.

For more information please visit http://www.music.ua.edu or call the School of Music box office at 205/348-7111.