Thursday, Nov. 16, 2023 • 7:30 p.m.
Weigel Auditorium
Columbus, OH
CONDUCTOR
Miriam Burns, director of orchestras
STUDENT CONDUCTOR
Malik Khalfani, DMA candidate
PROGRAM
Leonore Overture No. 3, Op. 72
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
Piano Concerto in G Major
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
I. Allegramente
II. Adagio assai
III. Presto
Karen Kim, soloist — winner, DMA Concerto Competition
Malik Khalfani, guest conductor
— INTERMISSION —
Fully Free
Catherine Likhuta (b. 1981)
Fully Free was commissioned by the Queensland Eye Institute as part of Last Seen — a project that centred on ten people with severe vision impairments. Each of these people was matched with a visual artist and a composer. They told us about their last, or their most cherished, visual memory. The visual artists created paintings based on these stories, while the composers wrote three-minute pieces. Fully Free is inspired by the last visual memory of Santiago (Santi) Velasquez.
Currently in his late twenties, Santi has glaucoma, sclerocornea and microphthalmia. He has roughly two-percent vision in his right eye and no vision in his left. He can distinguish colours and shapes as well as objects that are very large within a certain distance from him and in perfect lighting. Santi was born with vision loss. He reads Braille and uses a guide dog in his daily life. One of his main missions is to develop software to help visually-impaired people find their way around. A range of screen reading programs on his Mac help him code. His output includes an app that makes it possible for people like him to use public transport in Brisbane.
Santi saw his last image when he was nine years old, biking with friends in his native Colombia. He remembers the sounds of them laughing and roaming carefree, with no one paying attention to his impairment. At that time, his vision was at about seven percent, enough for him to cycle by himself. Today he uses a tandem bike. He explains: “The bike is my last seen image. It was my last time to be fully free as I didn’t have to walk slowly to check out the surroundings as I do now. Before nine years old, I could bike relatively quickly as I could see people (or rather movement) approaching me. I could feel the wind and feel the bike and the road and not worry about having insufficient vision. I wasn’t tied to a primary orientation mobility aid (such as a guide dog or white cane) or limited to walking slowly.”
When I read Santi’s story, the phrase “fully free” jumped at me immediately. I come up with many of my compositional ideas on bike rides, and it was a huge relief for me to find out that Santi could still ride on a tandem. When we met ahead of my writing the piece, he asked me why the orchestral musicians always had to be seated the same way (strings at the front, percussion at the back, etc.). I decided to approach the orchestration of this piece with that question in mind: not necessarily to answer it but to have a three-dimensional approach to the orchestra when it came to solos. One can clearly hear a trombone solo, then a piccolo, then a trumpet and so on; thus, a visually impaired person can feel where the sounds of those instruments come from.
A sentimental little time capsule, the piece has a light Latin-American feel to it, as an homage to the time and place in Santi’s life when he last felt fully free.
— Note by the composer
Death and Transfiguration, Op. 24
Richard Strauss (1864–1949)
ROSTER
VIOLIN I
Nathan Jeoung, concertmaster
Yiyi Suo, associate concertmaster
Clara Rudy
Chuyang Deng
Siddharth Figurov
Hsiang Yu Lan
D.
Myra Stewart
Zoe Wolfe
Timothy Liou
VIOLIN II
Sam Golik, principal
Anastasia Anikina
Mary Wellmeier
Declan Alford
Adam Whitman
Audrey Greer
Lauren Bess
Melanie Owen
Owen Waller
Ava Newdome
VIOLA
Jaryn Danz, principal
Aaron Pearson
Mitchell Likovetz
Nicolo Moulthrop
William Ayres
Avery Temple
Brandon Waite
Jade Diaz Nolasco
CELLO
Rosa Balderrama, principal
Owen Summers, assistant
Aidan Sullivan
Nathaniel Tyler
Anya Gu
Jacob Schwengler
Lucy Reed
Aidan Dever
Eden David
Anne Bartos
BASS
Saoirse Hurley, principal
Carson Wolf
James Ballard
Samantha Marcrum
Dirui Jiang
Owen Lutz
FLUTE
Meagan Gaskill
Katie Sharp
Jonathan Mitchell
Braden Stewart
OBOE
Briele Vollmuth
Laura Pitner
Maddie Wittman
ENGLISH HORN
Laura Pitner
CLARINET
Destiny Malave
Louis Maligaya
Eli Johnson
Kaleigh McGee, E-flat clarinet
Katie Lowry, bass clarinet
BASSOON
Brandon Golpe
Laila Elhamri
Isaiah Heyman, contrabassoon
HORN
Annie Moon
Ben Moloci
Cheng Peng
Theresa Deevers
TRUMPET
Ben Guegold
Matt Pileski
Luke Bingham
Zack Heffner
Conner McMullen
Alessandro Nocero
TROMBONE
Tristan Miller
Charlotte Stefani
Alex Myers
Eric Oxsalida, bass trombone
TUBA
Lucas Snouffer
TIMPANI
Matt Hanson
PERCUSSION
Matt Hanson
Noah Landrum
Joey Speidel
Tres Perkins
Haydn Veith
Brody Fogel
HARP
Jillian Davis
Jeanne Norton
PIANO
Kaiwei Guo
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