The Concord Orchestra Presents "Momentum"

The winner of the young artist competition Jiyu Oh performs Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto.

This concert features several young performers who participated in The Concord Orchestra’s annual young artist competition. The competition is open to musicians of high school age or younger who live in eastern Massachusetts. This season the winner was chosen by a panel of orchestra members and Music Director Zeke Fetrow.

Jiyu Oh, 17,  is from Seoul, South Korea and currently studies with Soovin Kim at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School and Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Boston. She is enrolled in the Chamber Music Intensive Performance Seminar and is co-concertmaster of the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra at NEC.  Her most recent accomplishments include full scholarship participation at the Chamber Music Northwest Young Artist Institute and Morningside Music Bridge, and a Jack Kent Cooke Award from NPR’s From the Top.

The Belfast Telegraph called Anna Clyne’s This Midnight Hour “a strange and beautiful composition with much fire and fury at both ends and attractive lyricism at its core.” The short piece, composed in 2015, is based loosely on two poems, but Clyne leaves much to the listener’s imagination.

Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto was composed early in his career in 1939.  Its first two movements are exquisite and touching, and the third movement is virtuosic and very fast.  It has been recorded by many respected artists and become part of the standard repertoire.

Paul Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis was written in 1943.  Dancer and choreographer Leonide Massine suggested that Hindemith write a ballet based on themes by Weber.  The project fell through due to artistic differences, but Hindemith completed this cheerful, lively piece that has remained one of  his most popular works.