News Release

Concerto Competition winners to perform with Southeastern Chamber Orchestra


Contact: Christina Chapple

2/29/08


Feliks Volozhanin, Milena Rusanova, Karyn Huggett

Caption …

CONCERTO WINNERS – Three Southeastern Louisiana University music majors who won the recent Concerto Concert sponsored by the Southeastern Chamber Orchestra will play their winning pieces with the orchestra on April 14 at the Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts. From left, are cellist Feliks Volozhanin of Chelyabinsk, Russia, violinist Milena Rusanova of Ruse, Bulgaria, and flutist Karyn Huggett of Hammond.


     HAMMONDThree Southeastern Louisiana University music majors were named winners of a new concerto competition, sponsored by the university Chamber Orchestra.

     As winners, flutist Karyn Huggett of Hammond, violinist Milena Rusanova of Ruse, Bulgaria, and cellist Feliks Volozhanin of Chelyabinsk, Russia, will perform their competition pieces with the orchestra April 14 at Southeastern’s Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts.

     Yakov Voldman, director of the orchestra and the string program in the Department of Music and Dramatic Arts, said three students were also designated as alternates – violinists Anton Smirnov of Kherson, Ukraine, and Jie Gao of Beijing, China, and clarinetist Art Davis of Lafitte.

     Voldman said 16 Southeastern music majors participated in the competition, which was judged by jazz and classical pianist Willis Delony, a former member of the Southeastern faculty and now a professor of piano and jazz studies at LSU. He hopes the concerto composition will become an annual event.

     Delony described Huggett’s performance of Charles Griffes’ “Poem for Flute and Orchestra” as “stunning. It was better than some doctoral level performances I have heard of this piece,” he said. “It was played about as well as one can play this work.”

     He said Rusanova, who performed Brahms’ “Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77,” is “a major talent playing on a world-class level. It was a pleasure to hear this fine performance,” Delony said.

     Delony said Volozhanin’s performance of Saint-Saens’ “Cello Concerto No. 1, Op. 33,” was “a fabulous, passionate performance … one of the most moving and exciting performances of the day.”

     The Chamber Orchestra concert, which will also feature farewell performances of graduating seniors, is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at the Columbia Theatre, 220 E. Thomas Street in downtown Hammond. General admission tickets are $5, adults; and $3, senior citizens, Southeastern alumni, faculty and staff, plus a one dollar handling charge is added to all tickets. Admission is free for all students. Tickets will be available at the Columbia box office from noon-5 p.m., Monday, Wednesday and Friday and noon-3:30 p.m., Tuesday and Thursday.



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