The Daytona Solisti Chamber Orchestra will open their Winter Festival – the group’s 20th concert season – with “Baroque and Classical Gems,” featuring Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, a work by his youngest son Johann Christian Bach, and an original piece, based on a 17th-century Lutheran hymn, by Solisti principal cellist Joseph Corporon.
“Baroque and Classical Gems” will be presented at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 19, at Port Orange Presbyterian Church, 4662 S. Clyde Morris Blvd., Port Orange, where Solisti is in residence this season. A $15 donation is requested at the door. For more information call 386-562-5423 or go online at daytonasolisti.com.
Composed of professional musicians from throughout Central Florida and Northeast Florida, Daytona Solisti performs music by the master composers of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Along with Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, Solisti’s Jan. 19 concert will include J.S. Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins, featuring violinists Susan Pitard Acree, Solisti’s founder and music director, and Olga Kolpakova.
Corporon, a graduate of the University of Miami and a founding member of Daytona Solisti, will be featured in Theme and Variations on Schmücke dich. For this original work, Corporon drew upon a Lutheran hymn whose melody was written in 1649 by German composer Johann Cruger, and which was later adopted by J. S. Bach.
Other works on the “Baroque and Classical Gems” program include London Overture No. 1 in A by J.C. Bach, and Holberg Suite by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg, which he wrote in 1884 to celebrate the life and work of Danish-Norwegian playwright Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754).
Daytona Solisti was founded in 2005 by Acree after she moved to Daytona Beach from Atlanta. She previously played violin in the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for 22 years, performing in New York (Carnegie Hall), London, Chicago, Paris and other cities.
Daytona Solisti presents an annual concert series performing as the Daytona Solisti Chamber Orchestra and the Daytona Solisti Chamber Players. Daytona Solisti also presents solo performances by pianist Dr. Michael Rickman, and concerts by the Rickman-Acree-Corporon Piano Trio.
Rickman, an internationally acclaimed pianist and a Steinway Artist (an honor bestowed by the renowned piano maker), has performed with Daytona Solisti as its artist in residence for 19 years. During his storied career, Rickman has performed in London, Paris, Carnegie Hall in New York City, Alice Tully Hall at New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and at venues in Toronto, Chile, Latvia and across the United States.
Rickman retired from Stetson University in April 2017 after 34 years as professor of piano at the DeLand school, where he has been named Professor Emeritus.
Other Winter Festival concerts include the Daytona Solisti Chamber Players performing “Chamber Music Masterpieces” at 3:30 p.m. Sunday Feb. 16, at the Port Orange Presbyterian Church. The program will include Schubert’s Piano Sonata in B-flat performed by Rickman, and Mozart’s String Quartet in D performed by violinists Olga Kolpakova and Susan Pitard Acree, violist Zoriy Zinger, and cellist Joseph Corporon.
The Daytona Solisti Chamber Orchestra will perform “Romancing the Strings” at 3:30 p.m. Sunday March 23, at the Port Orange Presbyterian Church. The concert will include Dvorak’s Serenade in E, Barber’s Adagio for Strings, Op. 11, and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor, featuring violinist Olga Kolpakova.
