| Details: | DAVID NEELY, Resident Conductor
YOICHI UDAGAWA, Guest Conductor
Guest Faculty Artist
BRIAN LEWIS, Violin
The UT Symphony Orchestra is rapidly becoming one of the nation’s most respected university orchestras. Recent honors for the critically acclaimed orchestra have included the 1996 American Symphony Orchestra League’s third-place award for creative programming of contemporary music, and in 1994, a Downbeat Magazine award for its performance of the Shostakovich Symphony No. 11. Students in the Symphony have had pleasure and opportunity to work with noted musicians such as pianist Van Cliburn, violinist Itzhak Perlman,
conductor Bobby McFerrin, cellist Lynn Harrell, baritone William Warfield, and Marvin Hamlisch in addition to featured appearances with UT’s world-renowned faculty of soloists and composers.
Music Director and Conductor of the Cape Ann Symphony Orchestra, the Melrose Symphony Orchestra and the Quincy Symphony Orchestra, YOICHI UDAGAWA is also on the faculty of the Boston Conservatory, where he teaches conducting. In addition, he is a cover conductor at the Boston Pops Orchestra. He conducted the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra for the first time in December of 2003.
Frequently invited to guest conduct, Mr. Udagawa has worked with many different orchestras including the Nobeoka Philharmonic Orchestra, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, the Indian Hill Symphony, the Garden State Philharmonic, the Brown University Orchestra, the Syracuse Society for New Music, the Boston Conservatory Orchestra, the Colorado All State Orchestra, the Newton Symphony, the Austin Civic Orchestra, and the Mid-Texas Symphony.
Mr. Udagawa is at home in popular and contemporary music as well as the standard symphonic repertoire. His programs for the 2005-2006 season include Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 1, “Winter Dreams”, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, Grofe’s Grand Canyon Suite, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9, and Respighi’s Pines of Rome, as well as special education, holiday, and pops programs. Guest conducting appearances during the year include performances with the University of Texas Symphony Orchestra, the New England Conservatory Sinfonietta, and the North Carolina Region All State Orchestra.
Yoichi Udagawa, the son of a nuclear physicist father and singer/artist mother, was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1964. His family immigrated to the United States soon thereafter. He began playing the violin at age four and made his conducting debut at the age of fifteen. After receiving a music degree from the University of Texas at Austin, he continued advanced studies in conducting with Gunther Schuller, Seiji Ozawa, Morihiro Okabe, and Henry Charles Smith.
A fan of many different styles of music, Mr. Udagawa also enjoys performing gospel music in addition to his conducting activities. He is also an accomplished violinist and a devoted student of history, philosophy, and art.
“Udagawa took the orchestra on an astonishing and fearless musical flight…” wrote one reviewer about the dynamic young conductor, Yoichi Udagawa. His performances have been hailed as “powerful and emotionally evocative.”
Named National Artist of the Year in 1998 by Young Audiences, Inc., BRIAN LEWIS has established himself as one of America’s most gifted and charismatic young artists. Acclaimed performances include concerto debuts in both New York’s Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall, as well as performances with the Berlin (Germany), Wichita, Syracuse, Amarillo, Greenwich, Fort Wayne, Topeka, Hartford, Cedar Rapids, Saginaw, Eugene, Sioux City, and American Symphony orchestras, among others. In Asia, Mr. Lewis has appeared as soloist with the Taejon City Symphony in Korea, the Royal Metropolitan Orchestra in Japan, and the Taipei Conductors Orchestra in Taiwan. Activities in Central and South America include a residency in San Jose for the U.S.-Costa Rican Cultural Center, recitals and master classes throughout Honduras for the United States Information Agency, and concerto performances with the Philharmonic of Lima in Peru. His numerous solo recitals include performances in Australia, Canada, Denmark, England, the French West Indies, Puerto Rico, the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York, and cities across the United States. Recently, Mr. Lewis made highly acclaimed recital debuts at both Wigmore Hall in London, and New York’s Lincoln Center on the Great Performers Series. Radio and television appearances include performances on WNYC, WFMT (Chicago), National Public Radio, and CBS “Sunday Morning” in a feature story on Dorothy DeLay. He has also performed at the Aspen Music Festival, the Sunflower Music Festival, the St. Barth’s Music Festival, the Casals Series, the Cape May Music Festival, the Evian Music Festival as soloist with the Juilliard Orchestra conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich, and at the Cabrillo Festival performing The Red Violin for composer John Corigliano’s 60th birthday celebration. An advocate for music education in the schools, Mr. Lewis frequently presents concerts, workshops, and master classes for Young Audiences of Houston. Mr. Lewis is Associate Professor of Violin at The University of Texas at Austin School of Music where he is the Fellow to the David and Mary Winton Green Endowed Chair in String Performance and Pedagogy. He is also the Artistic Director of the Starling-DeLay Symposium on Violin Studies at The Juilliard School in New York City.
As a student of Eleanor Allen, Mr. Lewis began his violin studies at the age of four, and participated in the Ottawa Suzuki Strings program under the direction of his mother, Alice Joy Lewis. He later studied with Tiberius Klausner, and twice traveled to Japan where he studied with Dr. Shinichi Suzuki at the Talent Education Institute in Matsumoto. He holds both the Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School, where he was a scholarship student of Dorothy DeLay, Masao Kawasaki, and Hyo Kang. Mr. Lewis has also recorded three CD’s, most recently “The Music of Robert Avalon” on the Centaur Records label.
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