WASHINGTON SQUARE MUSIC FESTIVAL OFFERS ORCHESTRAL TREASURES– A FREE CONCERT

Sat. Nov. 19, 8 pm

On Saturday, November 19 at 8 pm, the Washington Square Music Festival offers a pre-holiday gift to music lovers: Orchestral Treasures, a free concert of music by Rossini, Czerny and Mozart.  Lutz Rath conducts the Festival Chamber Orchestra featuring pianists Hélène Jeanney and David Oei.  Taking place in the Sanctuary of the Manhattan Seventh-day Adventist Church, 232 West 11th Street, just west of Seventh Avenue South in Manhattan, the historic and beautiful church was built in 1881 in the Queen Anne Style.  The evening is a collaboration between REACH-NYC “Concerts for Peace” and the Washington Square Music Festival.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19 at 8 pm

WASHINGTON SQUARE MUSIC FESTIVAL

Manhattan Seventh-day Adventist Church

232 West 11th Street, just west of Seventh Avenue South

Christopher St. on 1 train

ORCHESTRAL TREASURES – free concert

Lutz Rath, conductor

Gioachino Rossini: Overture to The Italian Girl in Algiers

Carl Czerny: Piano Concerto in C major for four hands, op 153

Soloists: Hélène Jeanney, David Oei

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550

Information:  (212) 252-3621   www.washingtonsquaremusicfestival.org

Composer Douglas Townsend describes Czerny’s Concerto in C major for piano four hands and orchestra as “an interesting example of the late classical piano concerto combined with the emerging bravura piano technique of the mid-nineteenth century.”  Soloists Jeanney and Oei are virtuoso artists whose passionate technique will make the November 19 performance an outstanding event. 

Pianist Hélène Jeanney, born in Paris, to an American mother and French father, started her musical studies at age 5 and later graduated from the Paris Conservatory at the age of 17 with first Prize in Piano and Chamber Music.  She then went on with a Fulbright Scholarship to study at Indiana University in Bloomington, with Gyorgy Sebok.  She has worked Yevgeni Malinin, Gaby Casadesus, Nikita Magaloff, and Isaac Stern among others. As a recitalist, she has performed throughout Europe,  Chili, Australia, and the U.S.  In France she has appeared at the Chopin Festival, the Paris Summer Festival, the International Festival of Radio France and Montpellier, the International Festival of Young Soloists in Bordeaux, and in recitals sponsored by the Phillip Morris Association in Salle Gaveau, the Opera Comique, the Bosendorfer Center, and the UNESCO.  She has been a soloist with the Paris Conservatory Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Indianapolis Symphony.

Ms. Jeanney, who regularly performs at Weill Hall with her Chamber Music group “Elysium”, is also part of a "Piano Duo" with David Oei.  She also appears frequently with the New York Philharmonic Ensembles at Merkin Concert Hall, and has played in Recitals with former Concertmaster of the NY Philharmonic, Glenn Dicterow, at Merkin Hall and at the Metropolitan Museum.

Pianist David Oei was a soloist with the Hong Kong Philharmonic at the age of nine and has since performed with major orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore Symphonies.  Mr. Oei is the winner of five Interlochen Concerto Competitions and the Concert Artists Guild, WQXR Young Artists, Young Musicians Foundation and Paul Ulanowsky Chamber Pianists Awards.  A perennial fixture on the New York City chamber music scene, he has made guest appearances with the Audubon Quartet, Strathmere Ensemble, Claring Chamber Players, Friends of Mozart, Da Capo Chamber Players, New York Philharmonic Ensembles, St. Luke's and Orpheus Chamber Ensembles and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.  In recent years he performed the Mozart Concerto No. 20, Brahms Concertos No.1 & 2, and Beethoven Concerto No.3 with the Strathmere Festival Orchestra and the Schnittke Concerto with the Washington Square Festival Orchestra.

Founding director of the Salon Chamber Soloists and a founding member of the Aspen Soloists and the Intimate P.D.Q. Bach he is also currently a member of the Elysium Chamber Ensemble, Festival Chamber Music, Polydora Ensemble, LED Trio, and the HD Duo with pianist Hélène Jeanney.  A former regular artist at Bargemusic and Chamber Music Northwest he has performed at various festivals including Caramoor, Sitka, Bard, Gretna, Seattle, Chestnut Hill, Dobbs Ferry, OK Mozart, Washington Square and Kuhmo (Finland).  Mr. Oei is an Affiliate Artist of Innovative Music Programs, a company that develops and implements creative ideas with people in the visual and performing arts.

The Washington Square Music Festival is made possible with public funding through Councilmember Margaret Chin and The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency.  Generous grants from The Earle K. & Katherine F. Moore Foundation, The Horace Goldsmith W. Foundation, Washington Square Association, The Margaret Neubart Foundation Trust, New York University Community Affairs & NYU Community Fund, Salamon-Abrams Family Fund,  Con Edison, and the Washington Square Park Conservancy, are deeply appreciated.