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Senior soloists perform with St. Olaf Orchestra

By Cate Grochala '06
May 10, 2006

The St. Olaf Orchestra recently presented a concert featuring senior student soloists and a work by a senior composer. The concert was held May 12 in Skoglund Center Auditorium.

"For many members of the St. Olaf and Northfield communities this concert has become one of the highlights of the school year," says Steven Amundson, conductor of the St. Olaf Orchestra. "It's great to have the opportunity to work with some of our finest senior performers."

SrSoloists06
Six St. Olaf senior students who performed in this year's Senior Soloists Concert: (front row, l-r) Sonja Tengblad, Kristin Clark, Claire Kelly and Karin Hancock; (second row, l-r) Micah Wilkinson and Eric Neuville.
This year's concert featured six senior soloists: Kristin Clark on marimba, Karin Hancock on piano, Claire Kelly on violin, baritone Eric Neuville, soprano Sonja Tengblad and Micah Wilkinson on trumpet. In addition, the orchestra performed Rage by senior student composer Matt Peterson.

The concert is an annual tradition at St. Olaf College that dates back to the late 1940s. Students are chosen by audition and subsequent preparation for performing as a soloist can occupy the majority of a soloist's senior year.

THE PROGRAM
"I remember attending the senior soloists concert as a first-year student and thinking how amazing it would be to have that experience," says Hancock, who performed the first movement of Schumann's Piano Concerto in A Minor for the concert. "I knew there couldn't be a better way to put a cap on four years as a piano performance major than playing a piano concerto with the St. Olaf Orchestra."

Neuville says he jumped at the chance to perform with the orchestra. He sang Ah per sempre io ti perdei from Bellini's opera I Puritani, a piece he started preparing at the beginning of this year. Neuville notes that while the experience of singing with an orchestra has been a new challenge for him, the concert "was truly an educational experience for all six soloists, not to mention tons of fun."

Other soloists' concert pieces included Creston's Concerto for Orchestra and Marimba, Kabalevsky's Violin Concerto, Mozart's L'amero saro constante from Il Pastore and Andre Jolivet's Concertino for Trumpet, Strings and Piano.

In addition to the soloists' pieces, the orchestra performed a few works alone at the concert. Mozart's Don Giovanni Overture was played in honor of Mozart's 250th birthday this year. The orchestra also performed A Short Ride in a Fast Machine, a contemporary work by John Adams. The orchestra concluded the concert with G. Winston Cassler's arrangement of Turtle Dove, a long-standing tradition of the ensemble.

Contact David Gonnerman at 507-786-3315 or gonnermd@stolaf.edu.