Soloists Will Add Brilliance To Next Month’s Winter Holiday Concert

To become a consummate musician either by playing an instrument or singing demands a persistent and driven individual with talent. The artists who are performing the 4th Annual Holiday Concert featuring The Concert Society Chamber Orchestra on Friday, January 5, at Trinity Church in Newtown, share a gift that will delight the audience with an uncommon virtuosity.

The Concert Society Chamber Orchestra will again be conducted by Richard Serbagi, a Newtown resident and president of the Concert Society of Putnam and Northern Westchester. For the past 18 years, he has served as music director and conductor of The Concert Society Chamber Orchestra.

Beginning his musical training in the Boston Public Schools, Mr Serbagi studied cello at New England Conservatory in Boston and The Royal Manchester College of Music in England. He was a member of the 7th Army Symphony Orchestra based in Stuttgart, Germany, and also The Utah Symphony (under the direction of Maurice Abravanel), The American Ballet Theater and Chicago Opera Ballet.

For several years, Mr Serbagi performed with the Symphony Orchestra of Puerto Rico at the Casals Festival. For 22 years he has been a music teacher at New Canaan High School and director of the orchestra.

As one of the founding artists of the Concert Society Chamber Orchestra, Mr Serbagi is leading CSCO through its 34th season during 2004-5.

Guest soloist John Hanulik has attended both the Curtis Institute and the Juilliard School, where he graduated with a master’s degree in performance in 1982. He has performed with the Bridgeport, Greenwich and Norwalk symphonies as well as other chamber and choral ensembles.

Recognized as a teacher and soloist, Mr Hanulik will play the oboe d‘amore, the alto member of the oboe family in the Concerto by G.P. Tellamann.

Connecticut composer, educator and musician Joseph Russo studied at Juilliard and Yale, attending composition and music theory classes at both schools. He has developed his own personal melodic and tonal composition style.

Mr Russo has composed numerous chamber and orchestral works. His most recent composition is his Chamber Symphony, which premiered in New Haven in May.

His “In Memoriam” for strings was composed in memory of those who died in the World Trade Center attack on 9/11. The premier performance of that piece was on September 29, 2001, in New Haven by Orchestra New England. The Newtown Holiday Concert performance of “In Memoriam” will be only the third to date for that piece.

Eric Lewis received his early training at the Manhattan School of Music where he received bachelor and masters performance degrees. The urgings of his chamber music coaches launched his concretizing career with Manhattan String Quartet in 1968. Since then the quartet, with Mr Lewis as first violinist, has become a premier touring and recording ensemble known worldwide.

Mr Lewis has broadened his performing as chamber music artist, soloist and conductor with the formation of several innovative ensembles, namely PVP, a contemporary music trio with percussion, violin, and piano; Prometheus, a piano quartet; Delphi, a soprano and violin duo; and the Camerata Chamber Orchestra, with which he conducts and performs as violin soloist.

Mr Lewis is a professor of music and director of chamber music and orchestral studies at Western Connecticut State University.

Encapsulating soprano Maria Ferrante’s career is like attempting to put your arms around the world. Her talent is prodigious and she returns to charm a Newtown audience once again with her voice and persona.

She is winner of the Mario Lanza Voice competition appearing in opera, oratorio, performance series, numerous galas and radio appearances. Her operatic leading roles include La Traviata, Die Zauberflöte, Otello, Turandot, Die Fledermaus, and so many more.

As soloist in oratorio, Ms Ferrante has performed in Brahms’ Requiem, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Poulenc’s Gloria, Fauré’s Requiem and other pieces by Gounod, Haydn, Kodaly, Rutter and Handel.

All tickets for the 4th Annual Holiday Concert are $30, and tickets must be purchased in advance. Tickets will not be sold at the door. They are available at C.H. Booth Library and branches of Newtown Savings Bank.

One pair of tickets will be given away next week by the concert’s organizers. Concert chairman Kathy Geckle and publicity chairman Paula Stephan invite the public to write a note about someone whom, because of his or her goodness, deserve a special holiday gift.

Notes should be mailed to or dropped off at C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street, Newtown CT 06470. Notes must be delivered to the library by December 21; a drawing will be held that evening to select a person based on the notes received, and that person will receive two tickets to the January 7 concert.

All proceeds from the performance will help the young adult department of Booth Library purchase non-fiction books for its collection.

Call the library for additional information at 426-4533.