BSO Welcomes 104 Howard County High School Musicians for Side-by-Side Concert, 2/20

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and 104 students from the Howard County Gifted and Talented Orchestra will play Side-by Side in a concert led by Maestro Shizuo Kuwahara on February 20, 2013 at 7:30 pm at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. This new partnership will commence in a special concert featuring works by Elgar, John Adams and Mahler. Additionally, young pianist Alisa Hwang winner of the Howard County Concerto Competition, will perform the first movement from Prokofiev's 3rd Piano Concerto. Please see below for complete program details.

Members of the Howard County Gifted and Talented Orchestra are selected through a very competitive audition process and prepared for the concert through preparatory rehearsals and master classes with BSO musicians.

Shizuo Kuwahara, conductor

The first prize winner of the prestigious Georg Solti International Conductors' Competition in Germany, Shizuo Kuwahara is the music director of Symphony Orchestra Augusta (SOA), formally known as The Augusta Symphony. Prior to SOA, Mr. Kuwahara's was associated as a conducting staff with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Virginia Symphony, Pacific Music Festival, Saito Kinen Festival, IPPO Philharmoniker, College of William & Mary and American University.

In Philadelphia, he was an apprentice to the Music Director Christoph Eschenbach and led the family and student concerts. In summer of 2008, he was an assistant conductor at Saito Kinen Festival, where he was an assistant to Seiji Ozawa and conducted Ozawa Jyuku Orchestra. He spent his summer of 2006 in Sapporo, Japan where he was an assistant conductor of Valery Gergiev at Pacific Music Festival.

His past guest conducting appearances includes Tokyo Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Century Orchestra Osaka, Omaha Symphony, Baton Rouge Symphony, Polish Chamber Philharmonic, Philharmonia Slaska, Buffalo Philharmonic, Chattanooga Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony.

In addition to winning the first prize at Solti Competition, he has won awards at many international conducting competitions, including Malko International Conducting Competition, Tokyo International Music Competition for Conducting, Prokofiev International Conducting Competition and Fitelberg International Competition. He is also a recipient of Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans.

Born in Tokyo, Mr. Kuwahara studied conducting at Yale University, where he was awarded Charles Ives Scholarship and won the Eleozar de Carvalho Prize. At Eastman School of Music he was awarded the George Eastman Scholarship, Performer's Certificate and the Arts Leadership Program Certificate. Mr. Kuwahara has also studied with Leonard Slatkin, David Zinman, David Effron, Lawrence Leighton Smith, Timothy Muffitt and Michael Jinbo at various conducting institutions, including Aspen Festival, National Conducting Institute, Pierre Monteux School and Chautauqua Music Institute.

Alisa Hwang, pianist

Alisa Hwang is a sophomore Honor Roll student in the Gifted and Talented Program at Marriotts Ridge High School in Howard County, began learning the piano at the age of four, and has been studying under Dr. Bok Hwa Kim since 2005. Over the years, Alisa has received much recognition for her achievement in piano playing. She has garnered top honors regularly from local and international competitions including: first prizes from the prestigious Elizabeth R. Davis Memorial Piano Competition, the Gertrude S. Brown Memorial Piano Concerto Competition, the Miriam S. Gottlieb Memorial Piano Competition and numerous other solo and ensemble competitions. She has also been awarded top placements at the International Young Artist Competition (Chinese Prize & First Prize, 2009; Second, 2011; Third, 2012), the William Kapell Young Artist Piano Competition (Semifinalist, 2012), and the Music Teachers National Association Junior "Kawai" Piano Performance Competition, Maryland State (Alternate, 2011). She has subsequently invited to perform at An Die Musik in Baltimore, the Washington International Piano Festival and the State of the Arts series at the U.S. State Department.

Alisa is also an accomplished cellist. She has been playing the instrument for four years and is currently a student of Ms. Won Hee Kim. As a cellist, Ms. Hwang performed with the 2012 Junior All-State Orchestra and the High School Gifted and Talented Orchestra, and was awarded second prize at the MSMTA Solo Strings Festival. Last year, as the cellist of a piano trio, Alisa and her group took the first prize at the MSMTA Chamber Music Festival.

COMPLETE PROGRAM DETAILS

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