CLASSICAL WOMEN: Albany Symphony Orchestra concert focuses on women in music

ALBANY — Claire Fox Hillard, music director and conductor of the Albany Symphony Orchestra, remembers well the first time he heard young violin virtuoso Hannah White play.

She had her violin, but otherwise she was alone on stage at one of the most storied music venues in America — Carnegie Hall.

And she was 15 years old.

“The piece I heard her do in Carnegie Hall — it was a Sphinx program — she came out in the center of the stage and played a solo violin piece and it filled Carnegie Hall with sound,” he said. “It was a fabulous piece.”

Two years later, White will share the stage with the Albany Symphony Orchestra on Feb. 17 at the Albany Municipal Auditorium for the third Paul Peach Masterworks Concert of the season titled “Classical Women.” The concert starts at 7:30 p.m.

White will join the ASO to perform Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor, Op. 61, by French composer Camille Saint-Saens.

Before coming to Albany for the show, White, now 17, was competing in the Sphinx Music Competition senior division after placing in the junior division in 2014.

“We’ve had a long association with Sphinx,” Hillard said. “That’s an organization that promotes black and Latino string players, hopefully in a way that will get them to careers in major orchestras so there’s diverse representation in orchestras.”

A violinist since age 8, White is a member of the Music Institute of Chicago’s academy pre-college training program for gifted musicians. She has performed solo with orchestras including the Milwaukee Symphony, Madison Symphony, Sphinx Symphony, Oistrach Symphony, Milwaukee Youth Symphony, Orchestra Senior Symphony and Music Institute of Chicago String Symphony.

In competitions, she’s won first place at Music Teachers National Association, Madison Youth Concerto Competition, Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra Senior Symphony Concerto Competition, Chinese Fine Arts Music Competition and Grandquist Music Competition, and has placed in numerous others.

White’s performance will complete the first half of the ASO concert, which will open with the orchestra performing Leonard Bernstein’s Overture from Candide

“We’re doing that because of the Bernstein (birth) centennial,” Hillard said. The Albany Symphony is performing a piece by Bernstein in each of its Paul Peach series performances this season.

Immediately before White’s performance, the ASO will perform a work by a young Georgia composer with ties to Albany — T.J. Coles, an Athens native.

Coles, 24, is pursuing a master’s degree in composition at Schulich School of Music in Montreal and holds a bachelor’s degree in composition from the Curtis Institute of Music.

The Albany Symphony will perform her work Double Play, which was commissioned by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for its centennial season in 2015-16. She was one of 10 composers selected by the Baltimore Symphony to write short celebratory works, and it premiered the piece Nov, 18, 2016.

Coles has also been commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony, the Louisville Orchestra and the Sun Valley Summer Symphony. In 2014, she was composer in residence at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music.

Hillard recalls the first time he heard one of Coles’ compositions.

“She actually is a niece of (retired Albany physician) Chappell Collins,” Hillard said. “We first heard her when she was in middle school. She was in Albany and she played for us — we had a get-together with Paul Peach — and she played some of her compositions.”

Hillard also heard Double Play in a rehearsal performance in 2016.

“When I was on one of my professional development trips to a Beethoven seminar and went to a Baltimore Symphony rehearsal, also on the program was this T.J. Coles piece we’re going to do,” he said. “It was the premiere. So she’s getting some notoriety from major symphony orchestras.

“I thought it would be nice. She’s a Georgian from the Atlanta area, but she has a local connection with Chappell Collins.”

After intermission, the Albany Symphony will perform Symphony in E minor Op. 32 “Gaelic” by Amy Beach, an American composer.

“Amy Beach (1867-1944) was a real pioneering woman from the 19th century, Boston area,” Hillard said. “She wrote this beautiful symphony; it’s the equivalent of a Brahms’ symphony. And she incorporated some Irish into it, a Gaelic symphony.

“It’s gotten a lot of prominent performances, and it’s a very important piece of music history, particularly for female composers. It’s beautiful music. The Women’s Philharmonic has done an edition of it because it was in manuscript form, so we actually got a grant from the Women’s Philharmonic to acquire the music — this new, engraved ‘scholarly’ edition — and so we’re exacted about it.”

Hillard said the symphony is a perfect fit for a concert that is emphasizing women in music.

“After intermission for this concert, we were going to do a symphony,” he said. “We could have done Brahms, we could have done Beethoven, but to draw attention to the fact there have been some prominent women composers all throughout history, I chose this piece.”

Tickets for the show are $25 for adults and $10 for students, both general admission. Reserved seats are $35. Tickets may be purchased at the ASO website www.albanysymphony.org or by calling the symphony office at (229) 430-8933. The concert is preceded at 6:30 p.m. by a Know the Score session in which Hillard and the guest performer talks about the evening’s program with early arrivers. It’s free with admission.

Those who attend also can meet Hillard and the musicians immediately after the concert at the Conductor’s Circle at the Albany Area Arts Council adjacent to the auditorium. Admission for that social event is $20.