YOUNGSTOWN Symphony concert showcases soloists

The performance includes a piece that salutes Liberace.
By ROBERT ROLLIN
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
YOUNGSTOWN -- The second of the Youngstown Symphony's Masterworks Concerts will be at 8 p.m. Saturday and will feature two internationally known soloists, flutist Doriot Anthony Dwyer and pianist John Nauman.
Dwyer, principal flute of the Boston Symphony for nearly 40 years, was the first woman to hold such a position and, like her ancestor suffragist Susan B. Anthony, blazed new trails in her field.
She will perform Ellen Taaffe Zwillich's Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, originally commissioned by the Boston Symphony and premiered by that ensemble in 1990 under Seiji Ozawa with Dwyer as soloist. The work is 18 minutes long and is technically challenging for soloist and orchestra.
Zwillich, like Dwyer, has a reputation for firsts; she was the first woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize (1983) and was named to the first Composer Chair in the history of Carnegie Hall (1999). Her music is known for being substantive yet immediately appealing to audiences of all kinds. This Youngstown premiere is an important one and well worth the trip to Edward W. Powers Auditorium.
Pianist: Nauman, a native of Maryland, received his advanced degrees at the Juilliard School under the prestigious Van Cliburn Scholarship. He has appeared with major American orchestras and recently performed an excellent Second Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto with Isaiah Jackson and the Youngstown Symphony.
Nauman will play "Le Tombeau de Liberace" (1996), a four-movement work for piano and chamber orchestra by composer Michael Daugherty of the University of Michigan. Daugherty has made his reputation with a host of pieces involving American popular culture.
Daugherty has described his topics as pop "icons," getting his ideas browsing through secondhand bookstores, antique shops and small towns in the back roads of America. An "icon" can be an old postcard, magazine, photograph, knickknack, matchbook cover, piece of furniture or road map. His works have such titles as "Metropolis Symphony" (after Superman), "Desi" (after Desi Arnaz), "Motown Metal," "Rosa Parks Boulevard" (after the civil rights heroine), and "UFO," inspired by the unidentified flying objects that have been a national obsession since the forties.
"Le Tombeau de Liberace" concerns itself with Wladziu Valentino Liberace (1919-1993), the renowned virtuoso pianist who was as likely to perform polkas, Broadway songs and pop tunes as he was to play works by Rachmaninoff and Chopin. Known for his sequined, rhinestoned costumes and his piano-shaped swimming pool in Los Angeles, Liberace played as often in front of a Las Vegas show band as he did in front of orchestras.
The movements of Daugherty's tribute are titled "Rhinestone Kickstep," a boogie-woogie number; "How Do I Love Thee," after the Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem that was a Liberace favorite; "Sequin Music;" and "Candelabra Rhumba."
Mozart's Symphony No. 32 and Tchaikovsky's "Mozartiana," a tribute by the Russian composer which reintroduces some of Mozart's lesser known melodies, will help anchor the program in the traditional repertoire, rounding out what should be a fascinating evening.
XFor tickets, call the Powers box office at (330) 744-0264.