The Reading Symphony Orchestra presents “Soaring Strings” on Saturday, March 3, at 7:30 p.m. at the Scottish Rite Cathedral featuring the RSO’s own concertmaster, Christopher Collins Lee, and associate concertmaster, Eliezer Gutman, in Malcolm Arnold’s melodic and exuberant Concerto for Two Violins and String Orchestra. The program additionally includes Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, one of the composer’s most famous and beautiful works, together with Sibelius’s Symphony No. 5.
Tickets can be purchased through Ticketmaster, by calling the RSO office at 610-373-7557 or emailing tickets@readingsymphony.org.
Additional RSO performances in the 2017-18 season include Glorious Gershwin on April 14 at the Santander Performing Arts Center; and Picture This! on May 5 at the Santander Performing Arts Center.
About the Artists:
Violinist Christopher Collins Lee, concertmaster of the Reading Symphony Orchestra, has performed on every continent except Antarctica. As official Musical Ambassador of the U.S. Department of State he has played thousands of concerts worldwide under their auspices, playing more than forty solo tours to Asia alone. After studies at Curtis and Juilliard, he won a Fulbright Scholarship to Europe. A protege of Leonard Bernstein, he performed many concerti with notable conductors such as Bernstein, Leopold Stokowski, Herbert von Karajan, and Sergiu Commissiona. He has been heard in recitals, and recorded solos with operatic singers including Luciano Pavarotti, Joan Sutherland, Placido Domingo, Aprile Millo, Kiri Te Kanawa, and Dawn Upshaw, and backup solos on various albums of Stevie Wonder, Linda Ronstadt, and Elton John. Christopher has won top prizes in the Carl Flesch International Competition, the Tibor Varga International Competition and the J. S. Bach International Violin Competition. He has also received The Lion D’or of the French government, a Guggenheim Grant, the Belgian American Award, and the Fritz Kreisler Prize.
Romanian-born and raised in Israel, Eliezer Gutman has been a member of the Delaware Symphony Orchestra since 1994 and is currently concertmaster with the Kennett Symphony of Chester County, the Allentown Symphony Orchestra, and Opera Delaware, and is the associate concertmaster of the Reading Symphony Orchestra. Eliezer has performed solo recitals in France, England, Spain, Israel, and the United States. He was concertmaster of the Israel Technion-Institute Symphony Orchestra, Kibbutzim Symphony Orchestra, the Haifa Israel Symphony Orchestra, and the Ensemble-Carmel-Israel Chamber Orchestra. Eliezer earned a Bachelor of Industry and Management degree from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and a Master of Music degree from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
Andrew Constantine was appointed Music Director of the Reading Symphony Orchestra in April 2007 following a two year search involving nearly three hundred conductors and was named Music Director of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic in in July 2009. Previously, Constantine served as Associate Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for three years following an appointment by Yuri Temirkanov in 2004. Constantine works regularly with nearly all of the top British orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic and the Philharmonia Orchestra as well as having strong relationships with a number of European and Scandinavian orchestras including the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. In the United States, Constantine has developed a reputation for imaginative and compelling programming as well as a profound commitment to music education. In 2003, he was awarded the degree of Honorary Doctor of Music by the University of Leicester for his “contribution to music” and was also awarded a highly prestigious British NESTA Fellowship.
Led by Music Director Andrew Constantine, the Reading Symphony Orchestra continues to provide and promote high-quality symphony music for the citizens of Reading and the greater Berks County area. For more information or to purchase tickets, please call 610-373-7557 or visit www.readingsymphony.org.
