RENO CHAMBER ORCHESTRA NEWS RELEASE – Violist Kayleigh Miller, the winner of the Reno Chamber Orchestra’s twenty-fourth annual College Concerto Competition, will be the featured soloist with the Orchestra in its concerts on Saturday, January 26 at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday, January 27 at 2:00 p.m. at UNR’s Nightingale Concert Hall.
Ms. Miller will perform Penderecki’s Viola Concerto, the work with which she won the College Concerto Competition, with the Reno Chamber Orchestra. These concerts, led by guest conductor Victor Yampolsky, will also include two works by Mozart, the Symphony No. 40 and the Adagio and Fugue, and Stravinsky’sPulcinellaSuite. Tickets are available at (775) 348-9413 or RenoChamberOrchestra.org.
Competitors from across the state of Nevada took part in the College Concerto Competition, which took place on November 25, 2012. They each performed a piece of music of their choosing, with the prizewinners chosen by a panel of three distinguished judges. Along with Ms. Miller’s first prize, the Competition’s second prize went to pianist Tian Li, and third prize to flutist Christina McHugh.
Kayleigh Miller is currently attending the University of Nevada, Reno as a member of the Nightingale String Quartet. She previous studied at the Eastman School of Music and the New England Conservatory, where she received a dual bachelor’s degree in performance and music history in 2008. She has participated in numerous festivals and masterclasses, has soloed with the Eastman Philharmonia, and played in the New World Symphony throughout the spring of 2011. Currently she is a member of the Reno Philharmonic, and previous was a member of the Boston-based Discovery Ensemble and Boston Philharmonic. Kayleigh is also an educator and arts advocate. She currently teaches and performs in Reno. More information is available at Ms. Miller’s website, kayleighmiller.com.
Guest conductor Victor Yampolsky, esteemed teacher, conductor and violinist, serves as Carol F. and Arthur L. Rice Jr. University Professor in Music Performance at the Northwestern University Bienen School of Music; Music Director of the Peninsula Music Festival in Door County, Wisconsin; Music Director Emeritus of the Omaha Symphony, as well as the Honorary Director of the Scotia Festival of Music in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Born in the Soviet Union, Yampolsky studied violin with the legendary David Oistrakh at the Moscow Conservatory and conducting with Maestro Nicolai Rabinovich at the Leningrad Conservatory. He was a member of the Moscow Philharmonic as both violinist and assistant conductor. After his emigration to the United States in 1973, he served as principal second violinist of the Boston Symphony. Yampolsky has conducted over eighty professional and student orchestras throughout the world, and has recorded for Pyramid and Kiwi-Pacific Records.
Every year the Reno Chamber Orchestra
presents the College Concerto Competition, the only competition of its kind in the state of Nevada. The participants, who must either attend a Nevada college or be a Nevada resident attending college out of state, compete for cash prizes and the opportunity to perform with the Reno Chamber Orchestra in one of its regular season concerts. Past Competition participants have gone on to careers as soloists, teachers, and orchestral musicians with institutions like York College in Pennsylvania and orchestras like the St. Louis Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic, and New World Symphony. Several participants have chosen to remain in Reno, where they teach and perform regularly with the Reno Chamber Orchestra, Reno Philharmonic, and Nevada Opera.
The College Concerto Competition is made possible by a generous grant from The Bretzlaff Foundation.
