Violinist Sobieska to perform at concerts

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The New Music Guild’s third concerts of the season will feature violinist-violist Wanda Sobieska and will take place at 7 p.m. Saturday at First Congregational Church of Jefferson, Ohio, and 5 p.m. Sunday at Sts.Peter and Paul Church, 421 Covington St., on Youngstown’s North Side.

Admission to both concerts is free.

Performing with Sobieska will be pianist Seung Hyun Yoo and violinist/violist Katherine O’Neill. Receptions will take place after both concerts.

Born in Warsaw, Poland, Sobieska belongs to the fifth generation of a family of musicians and musicologists. She has appeared as a solo and chamber musician in the United States, Poland and Canada, and regularly plays in many professional orchestras.

She began studying violin at age 5, and attended the Grazyna Bacewicz School of Music in Warsaw, the Cleveland Music School Settlement and the University of Cincinnati’s College- Conservatory of Music.

Sobieska is also a gifted arranger and has studied composition for many years. Recent arranging engagements include commissions by the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra and the English Symphony Orchestra.

In 2009, she launched freegigmusic.com, a website dedicated to making sheet music available to working musicians. Featuring her own practical arrangements of commonly requested pieces available for free while adhering to standards of high quality, the site currently serves more than 1,000 visitors a day worldwide.

South Korean musician Seung Hyun Yoo was a visiting grad assistant, scholarship holder, and accompanist for both the Kent State University Chorale and Chorus. He holds master’s degrees in both piano and composition.

O’Neill served as concertmaster of the YSU Dana Symphony and as assistant concertmaster in the Warren Philharmonic.

Wanda Sobieska will perform the world premiere of YSU Professor Emeritus Robert Rollin’s “Adam’s and Aidan’s Reverie” (2017), accompanied by Yoo. Adam Dunn, the composer’s son-in-law, and Aidan Dunn, the composer’s 3-year-old grandson who inspired the composition.

Violinist Gwyneth Rollin will begin the concert with Robert Rollin’s “Hebraic Prayer,” accompanied by the composer at the piano. The melody, known worldwide, is from the Jewish Saturday worship service.

Gwyneth Rollin studied violin and music theory at the University of Calgary and Indiana University. She played in the Calgary Philharmonic, Youngstown Symphony Orchestra and Warren Philharmonic.