Following its recent Concerto Competition, the University of Rochester River Campus Music Program selected four students to perform as soloists with the University of Rochester Symphony Orchestra next spring.
Gregory Parris, Laura Wilkins and Jennifer Chu will join the orchestra for a concert on March 2. Parris, a cellist, will perform Max Bruch's Kol Nidre; Wilkins, a flutist and German major, will perform Frank Martin's Ballade; and Chu, a pianist majoring in violin and biology, will perform a movement from Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1.
A second symphony concert on April 20 will feature Kevin Ibach in a solo performance of the first movement of Wolfgang Mozart's Concerto No. 15. Ibach, a pianist, is a resident in the radiology program in the School of Medicine and Dentistry.
"The opportunity to perform as a soloist is extremely exhilarating," conductor David Harman said. "These people are talented and smart."
To be selected to perform, the competitors must perform 10 minutes of a concerto, solo or aria for a panel of judges consisting of members of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
"This year was extremely difficult to judge because the level of competition was so high. Students were superbly prepared," Harman said.