Annelle Kazumi Gregory will perform on November 9 at St. Matthew’s
Prize-Winning Violinist to Perform at St. Matthew’s
Violinist Annelle Kazumi Gregory, First Prize and Audience Choice Award winner at the prestigious National Sphinx Competition, will perform at St. Matthew’s Church at 8 p.m. on Friday, November 9.
Gregory will perform Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s most popular concert work, the Violin Concerto in D major, composed in 1945. She will join The Chamber Orchestra at St. Matthew’s under new music director and conductor, Dwayne S. Milburn, in a commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.
The concert will also feature the music of Aaron Copland and Maurice Ravel.
Composer Korngold was born in Austria but came to Hollywood in the 1930s where he wrote 16 Hollywood film scores and captured two Oscars. His scores for “Captain Blood,” “The Sea Hawk,” “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” and “The Sea Wolf” established the language of the classic Hollywood film score and were highly influential on later composers Alfred Newman and John Williams.
The Violin Concerto marked Korngold’s return to concert music and premiered in 1947.
Maurice Ravel composed “Le tombeau de Couperin” in 1917 in memory of six friends, all of whom died during the Great War. The piece was originally composed for piano and uses the term “tombeau” which was assigned to music written as a memorial by French composers of the Baroque period.
“Letter from Home” was composed by Aaron Copland in 1944 and was conceived as a patriotic work that evokes the feelings of a soldier reading a letter from home. The work will be heard in conjunction with the reading of several letters by soldiers writing from the front during World War I.
Dwayne Milburn is a graduate of UCLA and the Cleveland Institute of Music. During a 20-year career in the U.S. Army, he became Commander and Conductor of the U.S. Army Band and Chorus in Europe. He became conductor of the St. Matthew’s Chamber Orchestra in September following his retirement from the Army.
All concerts are preceded at 7:10 p.m. by “Liner Notes,” a preview and discussion of the evening’s music featuring Music Guild President and former Music Director, Thomas Neenan.
Tickets are $35 at the door. Advance tickets, discounted season passes for all concerts, and more information are available through the Music Guild’s website, MusicGuildOnline.org or by calling (310) 573-7422.