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THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS SUBSCRIPTION SERIES |
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Stars of the Future
Adron Ming, Music Director/Conductor Young Artists' Competition
An Qi, Piano
Prize money provided by QORE Business
Solutions, Inc.
An Qi, Maestro
Adron Ming, Malori Fuchs,
Antoinette Gan, Mozart: Symphony no. 26 in E-flat Major Tchaikovsky: Variations for Cello and Orchestra on a Rococo Theme Intermission
Borodin: In the Steppes of Central Asia
More on Mozart An Qi An Qi, 16, started studying piano with Wenzao Chen at 7 years of age. He has studied with his current teacher, Yifan Liu, for 7 years. He has received awards at the Collin County Young Artists competition, he was a winner at the TMTA state convention, and he was awarded the Grand Prize at the Sunray North Texas Youth Music Competition.
Aside from music, he has also received awards at the Texas Mathcounts competition and the TMSCA math and science competitions. He currently is a sophomore at Centennial High School in Frisco, where he is ranked number 1 in his class.
Antoinette Gan
For the past four and a half years, she has been studying cello under Michael Coren. This summer, she studied under Hans Jensen and Jonathan Lewis at the Meadowmount School of Music. She hopes to someday become a world-class cellist.
Malori Fuchs Malori has been studying the violin since the age of three. Former teachers have included Joyce Nelson and Jennifer Burton. Her current teacher, Rebecca Stern, is a member of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. Four years ago, Malori also began studying the piano with Lorraine Landefeld. Through the years, Malori has enjoyed playing as a soloist and in ensembles for various nursing homes, civic organizations, and churches. She is a member of the New Conservatory of Dallas and is concertmistress of Vivo ensemble. She was also a member of the former Monday Night Orchestra and the Greater Frisco Youth Orchestra. She has received various awards at competitions including the Dallas Music Teachers’ Association Symphonic Festival, North Texas Young Artists’ Competition, and the Collin County Young Artists’ Competition. She has participated in The Institute for Strings (Dallas) and Heifetz International Music Institute (New Hampshire). Malori is a performing member of Texanischer Shuhplattler Verein, a Bavarian folk dancing group. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, creative writing, scrapbooking, and web design. She resides in Frisco with her parents and three younger siblings.
Symphony no. 26 in E-Flat Major
I.
Molto presto Mozart wrote most of his youthful symphonies for use during the concert tours which took him all over Europe. When he was nine he modeled his first symphony on the music of Johann Christian Bach, through whom he had become familiar with the form of the Italian opera sinfonia (three interlinked movements). The Symphony in E-flat Major, K. 184, composed ten years later in 1774, is still an opera sinfonia of this kind – not only as regards outward form, but also in its very nature (it was in fact used as overture to a play) The themes of the first movement are well suited to an overture; there is no Development in the usual sense of the word, the themes being transposed in the middle section of the movement. The movement richest in content is the second, Andante, whose pathos is intensified by chords in the winds occurring on the unaccented part of the measure. This work belongs to a group of nine symphonies written during the period 1773-74, some of which Mozart is believed to have written for a benefactor in Milan. These works conclude the first period of Mozart’s symphonic writing.
Somebody of Mozart’s musical skills should have had no problem in landing a well paying job at the court of his choice but he spent his life looking for such a position and never found it. Everybody recognized his talent. They just had a problem with his personality. He had a reputation for being lightheaded, temperamental and obstinate, sullen and insubordinate. In addition, he was tactless and impulsively said exactly what he thought about other musicians. Given that he was truly better than other musicians and had an unerring eye for mediocrity, his opinions were almost always uncomplimentary and delivered with a mix of arrogance and superciliousness. Child prodigies do not always grow up to be well rounded adults. His father, Leopold, ruthlessly exploited Mozart’s musical talent at the expense of every other aspect of growing up. Seeing his son as the ticket to a comfortable retirement, he took him on tour from the age of six. By thirteen he had performed in Vienna, Munich, Coblenz, Frankfurt, Brussels, Paris, London, Lyons, Milan, Bologna, Naples, Venice, Innsbruck and Mannheim. His education in non-musical subjects was ignored, most of his time was spent with adults, he often saw his name in the news and his skills were extravagantly praised wherever he went. Leopold Mozart was intelligent but unimaginative and unbending, a precise and pedantic, well organized man. Wolfgang was easygoing, gregarious, undisciplined, and an easy touch for money. The father only saw the son’s flaws and had no comprehension of the level of the son’s talent. Wolfgang, pushed by musical genius could not be the sober, thrifty bourgeois his father demanded. Growing up, he had been taught to lean on his father but when he eventually rebelled and pushed the prop away, he had few skills to manage his life. Mozart’s first biographer, Friedrich Schlichtegroll, wrote that “For although this rare person early became a man so far as his art was concerned, he always remained in almost all other matters a child. He never learned to rule himself. For domestic order, for sensible management of money, for moderation and wise choice in pleasures, he had no feeling. He always needed a guiding hand.” Mozart died penniless at thirty-five.
Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Opus 22 Saint-Saëns’ long career reached well into the 20th century – he was born only two years after Brahms and he died at the age of 86 in 1921. During the last quarter of the 19th century he was a leading figure in the advancement of the “new” in French music. However, with the advent of the 20th century changes in musical expression he became a spokesman for conservatism and he left the French field to Debussy. Still, during the second half of the 19th century he was one of the most influential and prolific composers in Europe. The Piano Concerto No. 2 was composed in seventeen days in the spring of 1868. Saint-Saëns arranged for a concert for Anton Rubenstein, the Russian pianist and conductor, in Paris. He wrote the piano concerto for this occasion and was the soloist for the premiere performance. The first movement opens with a piano introduction which suggests the contrapuntal style fantasia of Bach. When the orchestra joins the solo piano, a new and lyrical melody appears in the solo instrument, followed by a second piano theme in a major key. After an extended passage of brilliant piano material the first theme reappears in the orchestra. There is a cadenza for the piano, and the movement ends with the material of the fantasia-prelude.
In
the Steppes of Central Asia Borodin
was a professor of organic chemistry who composed music in
his spare time. He became highly successful in research work, and
In the Steppes of Central Asia was one of twelve pieces commissioned of various composers in 1880 as incidental music for a series of tableaux illustrating the major events in the reign of Alexander III. This composition was to accompany a scene depicting a Central Asia caravan on the Steppes of Turkestan, which Alexander captured. The pageant was never staged, but Borodin’s music was an immediate success. The music is characteristic of Borodin in its eastern and Russian flavor. There are two main themes: the first is a folk-like melody and the second has an eastern cast – it is the song of the camel drivers which was made familiar through the music of Kismet, which is based on Borodin’s themes. Towards the end of the piece, the two melodies are played simultaneously, a feat of counterpoint which Borodin achieves with special success.
Concerto No. 2 in d
minor for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 22
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Lewisville
Lake Symphony
Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart was the supreme master of composing -- opera, symphony,
chamber, vocal, piano, choral music -- anything. He was the finest
conductor, pianist and organist in Europe. He could have been the
best violinist if he had worked at it. He could think out a
quartet and write the individual parts before creating the full score.
He could perfectly sight read any piece of music placed in front of him
or hear a piece of music for the first time and immediately write it out
note for note. At three he could pick out tunes on a piano, by four he
could tell his elders that a violin was a quarter tone out of tune and
at six he started composing. 
it
is one of the most interesting paradoxes in musical history that he
would be equally successful as a composer. His artistic output as a
composer included the opera, Prince Igor, three symphonies and
numerous chamber works and songs. 
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