On Friday, September 27 at Chesapeake College’s Todd Performing Arts Center, the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra will kickoff its 22nd season with Lalo Schifrin’s Mandolin Concerto and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.
The concert will begin with Nicolas Mazmanian’s “Mission Impossible Variations” which was dedicated to Lalo Schifrin. Schifrin is an Argentine-American pianist and composer who is best known as one of Hollywood’s top composers. His most notable compositions are the “Theme from Mission: Impossible” and “Bullitt.”
Schifrin wrote his “Mandolin Concerto” for Vincent Beer-Demander, one of Europe’s foremost mandolinists. Beer-Demander will join the MSO for the American Premiere of Schifrin’s concerto.
The concert will conclude with Beethoven’s iconic Seventh Symphony, which Wagner called “the apotheosis of dance itself.”
Tickets are $45 and can be purchased online at www.midatlanticsymphony.org, by phone at 888.846.8600, or at their box office (open 1 hour before each performance – subject to availability).
Friday, September 27, 2019, 7:30 p.m. – Chesapeake College, Todd Performing Arts Center: 1000 College Cir, Wye Mills, MD 21679
The Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra is supported in part by the Maryland State Arts Council; the Talbot County Arts Council; the Worcester County Arts Council; Sussex County, Delaware;the Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore, Inc; Costal Style Magazine; and Whats Up? Media. These concerts benefit the Mid-Atlantic Symphony’s mission to offer to the citizens of the Mid-Atlantic Region musical entertainment and enjoyment and to promote musical activities and programs for the cultural and educational benefit of the public.
Calendar Listing
Mid-Atlantic Symphony Presents Schifrin Mandolin Concerto& Beethoven Symphony No. 7
Friday, September 27, 7:30 p.m.
Chesapeake College
Todd Performing Arts Center
1000 College Cir, Wye Mills, MD 21679
The Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra begin its 2019-2020 season with “Movie Themes to Classica,” featuring Nicolas Mazmanian’s “Mission Impossible Variations,” the American Premiere of Lalo Schifrin’s “Mandolin Concerto,” and Beethoven’s iconic “Symphony No. 7.” The MSO will be joined by one of Europe’s foremost Mandolin Soloists, Vincent Beer-Demander.Tickets are $45 and can be purchased online at www.midatlanticsymphony.org, by phone at 888.846.8600, or at their box office (open 1 hour before each performance – subject to availability).
About the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra
The Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra is a professional orchestra which exists to offer citizens of the Mid-Atlantic Region opportunities for musical entertainment and enjoyment, the development of the musical arts, the promotion, development and operation of musical enterprises in the performing arts, particularly through symphonic programs and choral activities; and to engage in enterprises directed at discovering and fostering musical talents, and to promote musical activities and programs for the cultural and educational benefit of the public.
About Music Director Julien Benichou
Hailed as “one of the most interesting and accomplished conductors of his generation,” Julien Benichou is noted for his blend of flexibility and control, inspiring musicality and incredibly infectious energy. Benichou currently serves as Music Director for the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra (MSO) and was recently appointed Principal Conductor of the Washington Opera Society. He is also the Music Director of the Chesapeake Youth Symphony Orchestra (CYSO) and the Southern Maryland Youth Symphony Orchestra (SMYOC). This past December, he made his debut with the New York City Ballet, in Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, and returned to Carnegie Hall, in a concert that featured Robert Redford and Vice-President Al Gore.
As Music Director of the MSO for the last 12 seasons, Benichou has greatly raised the profile of the ensemble, attracting premier artists, as well as expanding the orchestra’s season. This year, he collaborates with Stefan Jackiw, Virgil Boutellis-Taft, Kurt Nikkanen, Brandie Sutton and Leon Fleisher. Previous seasons have included concerts with such noted artists as Kevin Short, Lester Lynch, Arnaud Sussmann and Tine Thing Helseth.
Served by a keen attention to detail and an ability to bring forth a wealth of expression from singers, Benichou has also found success conducting operatic productions. Most recently, as principal conductor of Washington Opera Society, he conducted La Cenerentola at the French Embassy, and L’elisir d’amore at the Residence of the Ambassador to Colombia. This June, he will conduct their production of Carmen with Jonathan Tetelman as Don José. He has conducted, to great critical acclaim, fully staged performances of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess with the Morgan State University Choir and Opera Workshop. In September of 2016 he conducted the premiere performance of James Lee’s Mother’s Lament with the Morgan State University Choir.
Benichou has also garnered acclaim as guest conductor at the Annapolis Symphony, Newark Symphony, Ballet Theatre of Maryland, Baltimore Concert Opera, Baltimore Symphony/Mobtown Modern Synchronicity projects, Orquestra Sinfonica do Parana in Curitaba, Brazil, the St. Petersburg State Symphony in Russia, the Maison Symphonique de Montreal in Canada, and the Siberian State Symphony in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, where he will return next season. Other return engagements will include a collaboration with Tim Janis at Carnegie Hall.
An avid supporter of new music, Benichou collaborated with many composers and was the Principal Conductor of the Towson New Music Ensemble for ten seasons. He also served as principal conductor for the Mobtown Modern Ensemble. Also a composer, Benichou has received commissions for theater, film and concert music; most recently from the Siberian State Symphony Orchestra.
Benichou has taken the Chesapeake Youth Orchestra on six different European tours, performing side-by-side concerts with the Orchestre des Jeunes de Montréal and the St. Petersburg State Symphony. He also brought the orchestra to prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall. The orchestra has been invited by several festivals in France, with an upcoming tour where they will premiere Lalo Schifrin’s Mandolin Concerto with Vincent Beer-Demander.
Julien Benichou also enjoys crossover and pops concerts, and has worked with The US Army Blues Big Band, the Army Strings, the Irish band Lunasa, and such artists as Warren Wolf, Mairead Nesbitt, Loreena McKennitt, Sarah McLachlan, and Matthew Morrison.
Benichou received a Graduate Performance Diploma from The Peabody Institute and earned a Master’s Degree from Northwestern University. He also pursued graduate studies at Yale University. In master classes he has worked with Leonard Slatkin, Yuri Temirkanov, Marin Alsop, Michael Tilson Thomas and JoAnn Falletta. His main teachers have been Victor Yampolsky, Gustav Meier and Jorma Panula.
Before coming to the United States, he trained in France, with Roland Hayrabedian and Pol Mule at the Marseille Conservatory and Jean Sébastien Bereau at the Rueil-Malmaison Conservatory, as well as privately with Yves Cohen. He also studied harmony and counterpoint with Pierre Doury at the Schola Cantorum in Paris.
About Mandolinist Vincent Beer-Demander
Vincent Beer-Demander (born in 1982) has won many awards from prestigious Conservatoires in France and Italy. He is the only mandolin player who has been granted the grade of as concert performer at by the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris and has won several international competitions, among which Giacomo Sartori (2004), Raffaele Calace (2008) and Jose Fernandez Rojas (2009).
He has played in many countries with such renowned musicians as Richard Galliano, Vladimir Cosma, Mike Marshall, Roland Dyens, Didier Lockwood, Philip Caterine, Claude Barthélémy, Roberto Alagna, Thomas Leleu, François Rossé, Nana Mouskouri, Féloche, Agnès Jaoui. Vladimir Cosma, Claude Bolling, Francis Lai, Jean Claude Petit, Richard Galliano, Hamilton de Holanda,Mike Marshall, François Rossé, Félix Ibbarondo, have dedicated their mandolin concertos to him.
As a soloist as well as in chamber music groups, Markeas, Moultaka, Bon, Bosseur, Hadad, Solano, Martin, Pattar, Marty,Charpy, Rolin, Festou, Vella, Eychenne, Houdy, Crousier, Nascimento, Ogawa, Ourkouzounov, Hue, Iacono, Nicolau, Paliotti, Grivel, Oger, Carrenio, Tarroncher, Houdy, Peyrebelle, Tognan, Bensa, Arrue, Della Vechia, Vial, Besingrand, Bakas, Parwez, Bohn, Branch, Giles, Gomes, Mollerskov, Olano, Tonawanda, Kan-no, Yip, Laval, Kassap, Brizmur, Feldhandler, Mazmanian, Sassier.
He is a regular collaborator of L’Orchestre National de France, l’Orchestre National de France, Minsk Philharmonic, l’Orchestre National de Lyon, L’Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, L’Orchestre National de Toulouse, The Israel Chamber Orchestra Ramadgan, l’Orchestre National de Montpellier, Bucuresti Orchestra Sinfonica, l’Orchestre National de Nice, l’Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, l’Orchestre du CNSM de Paris, l’Orchestre Philarmonique de Marseille, l’Opéra de Toulon Provence Méditérranée., l’Opéra National de Paris – Bastille, Romania National Orchestra, l’Ensemble Cbarré, l’Ensemble TM+, Proxima Centauri.
As a professor at the National Conservatory of Marseille in France, the Royal Conservatory of Liège in Belgium, he is regularly called upon to give master-classes either alone or in collaboration with such well-known musicians as Pierre Henry Xuereb, Philippe Muller, Patrick Gallois, Emmanuelle Bertrand, Dejan Bogdavovic, Hélène Dautry, Fabrice Pierre, Yehuda Hanany, Christophe Giovaninetti, Denis Pascal.
As a composer, he has produced a vast array of pieces which have been published by the Oz musical library (Canada), Mundoplectro (Spain), Trekel (Germany) &Hody (France).
His considerable number of records is evidence of the variety of his musical achievements.
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