34th Annual Fairfield County

String Orchestra Music Festival

Will Be March 29

DANBURY — On Saturday, March 29, the Fairfield County String Teachers Association will present its annual String Orchestra Music Festival.

Featured on the program will be three string orchestras with a total of over 200 area middle and junior high school students participating. Eighteen towns in the western region of Connecticut will be represented. This event is an enrichment experience for qualified instrumentalists recommended by their school music teachers and selected by festival committees.

A public concert will be presented at Western Connecticut State University’s White Hall auditorium at 3 pm. Tickets are $6 for adults. Children under 14 years of age will be admitted free.

The conductors for the festival will be Dr Nola Campbell, assistant professor of Music Education at The Hartt School, University of Hartford, director of the Hartt String Project and president of the Connecticut chapter of the American String Teachers Association; Anne Rupert, music director of the Youth Orchestras of Prince William in Virginia, and conductor of the Youth Symphony Orchestra; and Louis Kozma, string bassist in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, New York City and conductor of the Junior Orchestra of the Youth Orchestras of Essex County, New Jersey and the Vermont Philharmonic Orchestra.

Assisting each orchestra will be area music teachers Jennifer Winschel (Trumbull), Carrie Mascaro (Westport) Dr Constance Barrett (Greenwich) and Howard Lapidus (New Milford).

The featured soloist at the festival will be Nora Murphy, a violist who is presently a student at Fairfield Warde High School. Nora is also a student at Juilliard Prep and has been a participant at the Tanglewood Summer Institute.

Newtown students participating in the FCTSA Annual String Orchestra Music Festival are Jane Ellen Anderson, Robert Daigle, Julie Ficks, Rachel Fintz, Kai Hedin, Austin Hubbert, Alex Lampel, Megan Loose, Ryan Nathanson, Leah Pinckney and Brenna Whitton.

It is the belief of the Fairfield County String Teachers Association that this concert experience will be a stimulating musical opportunity for the participants and will provide them with the motivation to advance in their musical studies. In addition, the Festival provides students from diverse backgrounds an opportunity to interact in a positive educational and social setting. The Fairfield  County String Festival is sponsored by the Fairfield County String Teachers Association. Membership in this organization is open to school systems, public school string teachers and private studio string instructors.