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Wheeling Symphony Welcomes Music Director Finalist With Evening of Music from Imperial City

A Night In Vienna is Sure To Impress

WHEELING — The Wheeling Symphony Orchestra’s next concert, A Night in Vienna, will be conducted by music director finalist Andres Franco and will feature guest artist Alexi Kenney. The performance will be held at the Capitol Theatre at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

The Imperial City has captured the imagination of music lovers for centuries, and counts Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms among its illustrious inhabitants.

Johann Strauss Jr. immortalized Vienna through his music, inspiring Richard Strauss to write the famous waltzes of “Der Rosenkavalier.”

Prior to the concert, patrons can purchase a pre-show, prix fixe dinner, catered by chef Rocco Basil in the Capitol Theatre ballroom starting at 5:30 p.m. For reservations, call 304-232-6191 or by email at boxoffice@wheelingsymphony.com.

Patrons also can attend a free Concert Talk at 6:30 p.m. where Franco and other guests offer a look at the story behind the music to be presented that evening.

Immediately after the performance, the board of directors invites concert-goers to attend a free post-show reception with Franco and other members of the symphony orchestra.

Tickets to the concert can be purchased online at wheelingsymphony.com, by phone at 304-232-6191, via email at boxoffice@wheeling symphony.com or in person at the box office, located at 1025 Main St., Suite 811, Wheeling. Discounts are available for attendees age 18 or younger, college students and groups of 10 or more.

Kenney, recipient of a 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant, makes his Wheeling Symphony debut performing Brahms’ Violin Concerto.

He enjoys a busy career as a concert and chamber violinist. Kenney has been named “a talent to watch” by the New York Times, which also noted his “architect’s eye for structure and space and a tone that ranges from the achingly fragile to full-bodied robustness.”

His win at the 2013 Concert Artists Guild Competition at the age of 19 led to a critically acclaimed Carnegie Hall debut recital at Weill Hall. Born in Palo Alto, California, in 1994, Kenney holds a Bachelor of Music degree and an artist diploma from the New England Conservatory in Boston.

Franco is beginning his fourth season as music director of Tulsa’s Signature Symphony and associate conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony. Highlights of the 2018-19 season include debuts with the Dallas Symphony, Omaha Symphony and Wheeling Symphony and a return engagement with the Detroit Symphony.

He also is a frequent guest conductor in the United States, Europe and South America and formerly served as music director of the Philharmonia of Kansas City, as associate and resident conductor of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, and as Leonard Slatkin’s assistant conductor during the 14th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

Franco holds a bachelor’s degree in piano performance from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, Colombia, and Master of Music degrees in piano performance and conducting from Texas Christian University. He is married to Victoria Luperi, associate principal clarinetist of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

“This concert will be an unforgettable musical journey to Vienna,” Franco said. “The program features two lighter and highly entertaining pieces by Johann Strauss Jr.: the Overture to ‘The Gypsy Baron,’ and the ‘Csardas’ from Ritter Pasman, both of which are influenced by Gypsy and Hungarian music. J. Strauss Jr.’s music was admired by many people, including the other two composers in the program: Johannes Brahms and Richard Strauss.”

Franco added, “We will play Brahms’s towering Concerto for Violin and Orchestra with Alexi Kenney as soloist. Alexi is one of the most exciting violinists I have heard, and I am very happy to be working with him in Wheeling.

“The concert concludes with the Suite from ‘Der Rosenkavalier’ by Richard Strauss. This piece is a tour de force that will showcase the amazing talents of the Wheeling Symphony. The suite — like the concert itself — is a celebration of all things Viennese and includes a delightful sequence of waltzes that will bring the evening to a spectacular conclusion,” Franco said.

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