ENTERTAINMENT NOTES : ASO names associate conductor
Posted on Sunday, July 20, 2008
The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra has appointed Geoffrey Robson as the orchestra’s new associate conductor.
Robson will also join the orchestra’s Sturgis Quartet as a violinist.
Robson, 26, graduated from Yale University in 2004, where he studied with Erick Friedman, with a master of music degree in violin performance. He studied orchestral conducting there, at the honors college at Michigan State University and, in the summers of 2006 and 2008, the Royal College of Music in London.
He has been studying conducting with David Hayes at Mannes College of Music in New York. He is a regular conductor with the Chelsea Symphony in New York and has guest-conducted several chamber orchestras in the New York area. He has worked as freelance violinist and violist and taught violin, viola, piano and music theory in New York and Connecticut. ‘The Rain in Spain...’ Rogers Little Theater will stage My Fair Lady — book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Frederick Loewe, based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion — at 8 p.m. Friday, July 31-Aug. 2 and Aug. 7-9; and 2 p.m. July 27 and Aug. 3 and 10 at the Victory Theater, 116 S. Second St., Rogers.
Buffet service begins one hour before curtain.
Tickets are $ 42; show-only balcony seating is $ 17. 50 for adults, $ 9 for children 12 and under and students under 18 with valid ID.
The Blue-Jean Ball, the company’s annual summer fundraiser, will feature a special performance of just the musical numbers from the show at 8 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $ 25.
Call (479 ) 631-8988 or visit the Web site, www. rogerslittle theater. org. The group will also hold auditions for Biloxi Blues by Neil Simon at 7 p.m. July 28-29 at the Victory Theater.
Director Rick Pierson is seeking to cast six men between 17 and 50 and two women, ages 16-30.
Audition packets are available at the theater box office for a $ 1 printing charge. Call (479 ) 631-8988 or e-mail Pierson at pierr@pamt. com. Symphony season I The Fort Smith Symphony will give the world premiere Oct. 25 of Monumentum by Arkansas composer Robert Mueller in the second concert of its 2008-09 season in the Arkansas Best Corp. Performing Arts Center, Fort Smith Convention Center, 55 S. Seventh St.
Mueller teaches composition and music theory at the University of Arkansas.
Also on that program, Pablo Sainz Villegas, winner of the Christopher Parkening International Guitar Competition, will be the soloist in the Concierto de Aranjuez by Joaquin Rodrigo. Music Director John Jeter will preview and then conduct Richard Strauss’ tone poem Ein Heldenleben.
The rest of the season: Oct. 4: Chu-Fang Huang, piano. Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2; Mahler: Symphony No. 5 Dec. 6: “A Keyboard Christmas” with Richard Ridenour, piano, and Brandon Ridenour, trumpet Jan. 31: Buddy Wachter, banjo; Darren Bobb, narrator. “Everybuddy’s All American,” works by American composers, including Copland’s Lincoln Portrait, and pops tunes Feb. 9-10: Stephanie Lemoine, cello; Michael Schelle, composer. Earquake ! for school groups, two morning concerts each Feb. 9 in Fort Smith and Feb. 10 at the Arend Arts Center in Bentonville April 25: Kiera Duffy and Layla Claire, sopranos; Sarah Mesko, alto; Salvatore Champagne, tenor; Jonathan Deutsch, bass; Canterbury Choral Society of Oklahoma City. Bach: Mass in b minor May 9: Ty Myers, violin. “Top of the Pops,” including music by John Williams for the film Schindler’s List and Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.
All performances, except as noted, are at 7: 30 p.m. at the Arkansas Best Corp. Performing Arts Center.
Season tickets are $ 100 and $ 130, $ 70 and $ 90 for students. Call (479 ) 452-7575 or visit the Web site, www. FortSmith Symphony. org. No Dog Night The Arkansas Symphony has also announced that “a heretofore-unknown scheduling conflict” will prevent pop group Three Dog Night from performing at its 2008-09 SuperPops ! concert, originally announced for May 12, 2009, at Little Rock’s Robinson Center Music Hall, West Markham Street and Broadway.
Replacing the band will be a rock tribute concert called “The Music of Pink Floyd,” with Randy Jackson, lead singer for Zebra, and guest conductor / arranger Brent Havens, on a new date: 8 p.m. Friday, May 8.
The show will feature more than a dozen Pink Floyd classics including “Comfortably Numb,” “ Us & Them, ” “Learning to Fly,” “ Money” and “Another Brick in the Wall,” plus “laser lighting effects reminiscent of a Pink Floyd concert.” Three Dog Night tickets will be good for the new concert date. Remaining SuperPops tickets, $ 30- $ 80, go on sale Aug. 15. Call (501 ) 666-1761, Extension 21, or visit the Web site, www. Arkan sasSymphony. org. Searcy Angels My Three Angels by Samuel and Bella Spewack will close the Searcy Summer Dinner Theatre’s season at 7: 30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, July 27 and Aug. 1-2 at the Ulrey Performing Arts Center, Harding University, Searcy.
Dinner is served an hour before curtain time. Tickets are $ 22. Call (501 ) 279-4580.
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