Violinist (and 2014 Young Artist Concerto Competition winner) Elizabeth Hendy helps Roy Gussman and the Monmouth Symphony Orchestra close out their season with “driving percussion rhythms and a dazzling display of violin technique.”
It happens every spring, and all too soon it seems — but here at the close of their 67th season, principal conductor Roy D. Gussman and the Monmouth Symphony Orchestra return to the stage of the Count Basie Theatre on Sunday, May 31 for the now-traditional Season Finale event. And, as tradition also dictates, they’ll be joined for the occasion by the musician who was selected as the winner of the annual Young Artist Concerto Competition, sponsored by the New Jersey Intergenerational Orchestra.
That talented musical prodigy is 16 year old violinist Elizabeth Hendy, a Juilliard School student who, it’s said, “will steal the audience’s heart with her spunky and passionate performance of Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No. 2.” It’s but one highlight of a program that switches gears for an exploration of the “driving percussion rhythms” of two 20th century South American masters.
Fans of the 1970s prog-rock band Emerson, Lake and Palmer might recall Argentina’s Alberto Ginastera as the author of the thundering avant garde workout “Toccata” — and his 1941 ballet excerpt “Dances from Estancia” employs what’s being called “a battery of percussion instruments” in its evocation of rural Argentine life. Concluding the 3 pm program “with a Latin flair” will be “Bachianas Brasileiras No. 4” by Heitor Villa-Lobos, one of a series of nine suites in which the internationally celebrated composer incorporated elements of folk songs from his native Brazil.
Tickets for the Sunday afternoon MSO Season Finale ($35, with discounts for seniors, students and children) are available right here.
