Festival Orchestra to perform third and final show

The IU Jacobs School of Music’s 2008 Summer Music Festival is coming to an end.  
The third and final Festival Orchestra performance will be held Thursday, led by world-renowned conductor Robert Spano.

Although Spano has played in orchestras all over North America, his performance at IU is memorable for him because he grew up in Elkhart, Indiana.
“It’s nice to feel at home,” he said.

Spano is the music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and according to the Atlanta Symphony Web site, he is considered one of the most talented and ingenious conductors in America.

Violinist Alexander Kerr will serve as concertmaster for the performance. Kerr is a professor of music in the school’s Department of Strings and has played throughout Europe, North America and the Far East.

“He is widely considered one of the great concertmasters of the world, period,” said Tom Wieligman, coordinator for the Summer Music Festival.

Wieligman said the orchestra features 95 undergraduate and graduate students. Spano said this allows for a professional environment but includes mentoring for the students.

“That mix is very rare in this world,” Spano said.

The orchestra will perform American composer Jennifer Higdon’s “Blue Cathedrals,” French composer Maurice Ravel’s “Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloé,” and “Scheherazade, Suite symphonique, Op. 35” from Russian composer Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

“We try to give our students a broad perspective of our repertoire,” Wieligman said of
the selection.