M E D I A  A D V I S O R Y

Richmond, Virginia  Experience Ginastera: Harp Concerto on Sunday, May 3 at 3:00 p.m. at Randolph-Macon College. The Spanish-flavored concert includes pieces by Gioachino Rossini, Alberto Ginastera, Manuel de Falla and Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga. This is the final Amtrak Metro Collection concert of the 2014-15 Season and will be led by RSO Music Director, Steven Smith.

The concert begins with Rossini’s upbeat Overture to L’italiana in Algeri. Following the Rossini is Argentinian composer Ginastera’s Concerto for Harp and Orchestra featuring Principal Harpist of the Richmond Symphony, Lynette Wardle. Concluding the concert is Falla’s Spanish folk-music inspired The Three-Cornered Hat Suite No. 1, and “Spanish Mozart” Arriaga’s Symphony in D.

A FREE pre-concert talk will be held from 2:00 – 2:30 p.m. in the Dollar Tree Community Room on the second floor of Brock Commons.

Ticket prices are $20 for adults, $18 for seniors, $10 for children, and $5 at the door for college students and faculty with ID.

Tickets are available online at richmondsymphony.com or 1.800.514.ETIX.
The Metro Collection series is sponsored by Amtrak. This concert is sponsored by Randolph-Macon Arts Council.

About Lynette Wardle

Lynette Wardle is principal harpist of the Richmond Symphony and the Albany Symphony. As a freelance musician she performs with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra and New York City Chamber Orchestra. For the holiday seasons, she has been the harpist for A Christmas Story, and the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. She also performs regularly in Wicked, The Fantasticks, and with her husband Chad Smith in Sax-O-Philm: Sounds and Sights of the ‘20’s. Lynette was the harpist for the national tour of the Tony award-winning musical Light in the Piazza. She has a number of recordings, most notably her work with Trilogy, a flute, harp, viola trio; AREA 31; Grammy award-winning Albany Symphony recordings and several movie soundtracks. Lynette has performed with many artists, such as Pavarotti, Josh Groban, Johnny Mathis, Neil Sedaka, Marvin Hamlisch, David Burnham, Megan Hilty, Björk, Olivia Newton-John, Ann Hampton Callaway, Deborah Voigt, Edgar Meyer, Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham and Joshua Bell. Her formal education was completed at the Manhattan School of Music with a Master’s Degree in Orchestral Performance in 1998, where she studied with Sarah Bullen, now the principal harpist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

About Steven Smith

Steven Smith is currently celebrating his fifth season as Music Director of the Richmond Symphony and his third season in the Lewis T. Booker Music Director Chair. He continues as Music Director of the Grammy Award-winning Cleveland Chamber Symphony and in 2013 completed a 14 year tenure as Music Director of the Santa Fe Symphony & Chorus.

From 1997 to 2003, Steven Smith served as the Assistant Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra where he appeared on the subscription series at Severance Hall and Blossom Music Center. With a strong commitment to arts education, he assisted in the planning and conducting of the Cleveland Orchestra’s educational and family concerts and hosted the orchestra’s annual broadcast videoconference which won an Emmy Award in 2001. For five seasons, he also served as Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra which performed by invitation at Carnegie Hall in 2001. From 2002-05, he was associate professor at Oberlin Conservatory, where he led both orchestral and opera performances.

In April 2013, Steven Smith made his debut with the Virginia Opera conducting their performances of Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro.” Steven Smith has appeared as guest conductor with orchestras such as San Francisco, Milwaukee, Houston, Detroit, Puerto Rico Symphony and the Aspen Music Festival. Abroad, he has performed with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, New Zealand’s Auckland Philharmonia, Taiwan’s National Symphony Orchestra and Mexico’s Orquesta Sinfónica de Xalapa. In addition, he has conducted numerous opera and orchestral performances at Indiana University and Brevard Music Center.

Steven Smith is an ASCAP award-winning composer, with commissions from the Cleveland Orchestra, Grand Rapids Symphony, Eugene Youth Symphony and solo artists. He was named Ohio Composer of the Year for 2008.

A native of Toledo, Ohio, Steven Smith earned Master’s degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music. He is the recipient of the CIM Alumni Association 1999 Alumni Achievement Award and the Geraldine C. and Emory M. Ford Foundation’s Conductor Career Development Grant.

About the Richmond Symphony

Founded in 1957, the Richmond Symphony is the largest performing arts organization in Central Virginia. The organization includes an orchestra of more than 70 professional musicians, the 150-voice Richmond Symphony Chorus and more than 260 students in the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra programs. Each season, more than 200,000 members of the community enjoy concerts, radio broadcasts, and educational outreach programs. The Richmond Symphony is partially funded by the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.