Symphony Orchestra's Young Artist Celebration

On Saturday, Feb. 13, at 8 p.m.

Emily Jurek (piano), Simon Luke Brown (violin and composer), Jeremy Jerim Myung (violin) and Max Keller (composer) (Photo by Howard Performing Arts Center)

On Saturday, Feb. 13, at 8 p.m., the Andrews University Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Nehemias Calsin, Kristii Rasmussen and Chris Wild, will perform for the Young Artist Competition. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the Andrews University Department of Music has continued with the annual competition. During the fall 2020 semester, students auditioned for the opportunity to perform. Four of these students, Simon Luke Brown (violinist & composer), Emily Jurek (piano) and Jeremy Jerim Myung (violinist), were selected to perform with the orchestra. Due to the considerable length of this year’s solos, one of the winners (pianist Nathaniel Cogen) will perform with the orchestra on March 13.

The concert will begin with two of the best-known concertos of the 19th-century romantic tradition, each renowned for how it showcases the lyrical range of the violin and the piano. The first soloist, pianist Emily Jurek, will open the evening with her performance of the first movement of Frederic Chopin’s “Piano Concerto No.1 in E minor.” Next, violinist Jeremy Jerim Myung will play the first movement from Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Violin Concerto in D Major.” Following his performance, violinist Simon Luke Brown will join the orchestra to perform his composition “Rhapsody-Concerto in D minor.” His composition utilizes all of the orchestra’s members as it moves from stark dramatic moments to virtuosic flourishes and even a playful folk dance.

Following an intermission, the symphony orchestra will perform Max Keller’s instrumental interpretation of the creation story, titled “The Genesis.” A native of Berrien Springs and an alumnus of Andrews University, Keller now teaches music composition and music theory at Andrews University as a professor in the Department of Music. This performance of “The Genesis” marks a return to his doctoral dissertation, titled “The Genesis: A Symphonic Work and Analysis,” with an accompanying analysis published in the June 2017 edition of “Catalyst.” Structured in seven parts, his composition depicts the seven days of creation, with six vivid musical illustrations followed by a seventh section titled “Sabbath,” for which the orchestra rests. Nehemias Calsin and Kristii Rasmussen, two graduate students in orchestral conducting, will conduct “The Genesis.”

A limited quantity of tickets is available for Andrews University music majors and minors, students and staff at the Howard Center box office. For a livestream of the event, visit www.facebook.com/AndrewsUniversityMusic. The full season schedule of events at the Howard Performing Arts Center is available at howard.andrews.edu.