Quad City Youth Symphony Orchestra alumna Saeunn Thorsteinsdottir recently made her debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic where the LA Times praised her for her "emotional intensity." This Sunday, Thorsteinsdottir will be bringing this same emotional intensity back to the Quad Cities as she performs in Augustana College's Wallenberg Hall. The concert starts at 3:00 p.m. and features Rachmaninoff's Sonata for Piano and Cello, a world premiere from local composer William Campbell, and other selected works. Since the time her career burgeoned in the Quad City Youth Symphony Orchestra, Thorsteinsdottir has garnered numerous top prizes in international competitions, including the 2008 Naumburg Competition in New York and the Antonio Janigro Competition in Zagreb, Coatia. Please come welcome her back to the Quad Cities.
Thorsteinsdottir will be performing with pianist Benjamin Loeb, recently hired as Executive Director of the Quad City Symphony Orchestra. This will be Loeb's first appearance on a QCSO concert. As a pianist, Benjamin Loeb has been praised by the Boston Globe: "[His] vigorous, cogent playing signaled the kind of equally weighted partnership, plus competition, plus mutual quest, etc. that [makes] this music live." His concerts have taken him around to the world to major venues and on radio and TV in New York City, San Francisco, Dallas, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Berlin, Seoul, Shanghai, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Panama City, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, and on tours across the United States. He has performed for community concerts and has been featured as Artist-in-Residence on NPR's Performance Today with violinist Livia Sohn.
William Campbell's Green Fire Variations for cello and piano is music about the energy within wild things. The title uses words borrowed from writer and conservationist Aldo Leopold: "We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes...I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view." (Sand County Almanac)
This first Signature Series concert will be in Wallenberg Hall at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, September 15. Get your tickets today for this very exciting start to the 2013-14 Signature Series at the QCSO box office, by calling 563.322.QCSO (7276), or by clicking here. Tickets will be available at the door.
