Symphony Orchestra

Jan Wagner with the SU symphony orchestra

Jan Wagner, Music Director and Conductor

The Shenandoah Conservatory Symphony Orchestra (SCSO) is the largest instrumental ensemble at Shenandoah Conservatory dedicated to the performance of both the standard and more contemporaneous repertoire. The ensemble typically performs six to seven different projects each season, including a full opera production and a program featuring winners of the annual Student Soloists Competition. There are currently between 75 and 80 regular members in the SCSO.

Over the last few years the SCSO has included some of the most challenging and exciting works in the symphonic repertoire, including Beethoven's Symphonies nos. 1, 3, 5, 6 and 7, Brahms' Symphonies nos. 1 and 4, Dvorak's Symphony No. 9, Elgar's Enigma Variations, Falla's Three-cornered hat suites nos. 1 and 2, Ginastera's Estancia Dances, Mahler's Symphony No. 1, Moussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet ballet music, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe suite No. 2, Ma mere l'oye and Bolero, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, Sibelius' Symphonies nos. 1 and 2, Stravinsky's Firebird 1919 Suite, Shostakovich's Symphonies No. 1 and 9, Richard Strauss' Death and Transfiguration and Tchaikovsky's Symphonies nos. 4 and 5.

The SCSO has also featured many of Shenandoah Conservatory's own performing faculty as soloists in many of their programs including works such as Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 (Karen Walker), Berlioz' Harold in Italy (Doris Lederer), Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2 (Elizabeth Caluda), Ravel's Sheherazade (Aime Sposato), Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez (Glenn Caluda), Richard Strauss' Concertino for Clarinet and Bassoon (Catherine Lindquist and Garrick Zoeter), Frank Proto's Carmen Fantasy (Sandor Ostlund) and the world-premiere of the orchestral version of William Cahn's Night Ride (Earl Yowell).

Several prominent artists have also been featured with the SCSO in recent seasons including pianist John O'Conor in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 and Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1, and trumpet virtuoso Jens Lindemann in the world premiere of Jay Chattaway's Shenandoah Fantasy for trumpet and orchestra, a work commissioned for performance at SU President Dr. Tracy Fitzsimmons' inauguration in the fall of 2008.

Every spring the SCSO is featured as the accompanying ensemble in Shenandoah Conservatory Opera's fully-stage productions. Recent operas have included Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Albert Herring, Mozart's The Magic Flute and The Marriage of Figaro, Menotti's The Medium, SU's own Thomas Albert's Lizbeth and Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus.

Armstrong Concert Hall is the home of SCSO's numerous performances each season, but the ensemble has also appeared in many significant performing venues including The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., and the Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda, Md. Since 2000, the SCSO has twice been selected to perform at the Virginia Music Educators Association Conference.

 Membership to the SCSO is open to both undergraduates and graduate students (both music and non-music majors). Auditions for placement consideration into the ensemble take place the week before classes start in late August. Ensemble placement materials are generally posted during the summer months. 

To learn more about the Shenandoah Conservatory Symphony Orchestra contact: Jan Wagner at (540) 665-1291 or jwagner@su.edu

Jan Wagner - http://www.janguillermowagner.com/ 

For a comprehensive listing of the Shenandoah Conservatory
Symphony Orchestra performances, please visit
www.conservatoryperforms.org/performances/symphony-orchestra

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