Read our guest artist’s bio here.
Dedham Savings, the Avery School PTO and the Dedham Cultural Council present the Parkway Concert Orchestra in a family concert on March 1 at 3 p.m. at Saint Susanna Parish, 262 Needham Street, Dedham. Parkway Concert Orchestra continues its 2008-2009 season of 'Celebrations!' with a celebration of dance. Music Director Matthew Fritz conducts the orchestra in selections from Brahms's Hungarian Dances and Dvorak's Slavonic Dances, 'Blue Danube Waltz' by Strauss Jr. and dances from de Falla's 'Three Cornered Hat.' The program features violin soloist Gabriela Diaz playing the Rondo from Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D.
This program is sponsored by Dedham Savings and is supported in part by the Dedham Cultural Council, a local agency and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. Donation is $10; $8 for seniors and $5 for children under 12 years old.
For ticket reservations or additional information please call 781-461-1823.
| Carmen Suite No. 1 | Georges Bizet, arr. Chas J. Roberts |
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Prelude Aragonaise Intermezzo Les dragons d'Alcala Les Toreadors |
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| Waltz from the Ballet Sleeping Beauty | Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, arr. Merle J. Isaac |
| Scenes and Dances from The Three-Cornered Hat | Manuel de Falla, edited by Steven L. Rosenhaus |
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Introduction Afternoon The Neighbor's Dance (Seguidillas) The Miller's Dance (Farruca) |
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| ---Intermission--- | |
| Blue Danube Waltz | Johann Strauss, Jr., Op. 314, adapted by Henry Sopkin |
| Violin Concerto in D, III Rondo | Ludwig van Beethoven, Op. 61 |
| Gabriela Diaz, violin soloist | |
| Hungarian Dances 5 and 6 | Johannes Brahms, arr. Albert Parlow, revised by Adolf Schmid |
| Slavonic Dances 1, 2, and 8 | Antonin Dvorak, Op. 46 - Nos. 1 and 2 arr. Theo. Moses |
Georgia native Gabriela Diaz began her musical training at the age of five, studying piano with her mother, and the next year, violin with her father. Shortly before her sixteenth birthday, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease, a type of lymphatic cancer. She was treated with chemotherapy and radiation at Egleston Children’s Hospital in Atlanta and the Medical Center in Columbus.
As a cancer survivor, Gabriela is committed to cancer research and treatment. She has lent her talents to a wide range of related programs and organizations, including the American Cancer Society, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Hasbro Children’s Hospital, Beth Israel Hospital, Mount Auburn Hospital, The Race for the Cure, OnCare, Inc., the Columbus Medical Center, and the Egleston Children’s Hospital at Emory University in Atlanta. In 2004 Gabriela was a recipient of a grant from the Albert Schweitzer Foundation. This grant enabled Gabriela to begin organizing a series of chamber music concerts in cancer units at various hospitals in Boston called the Boston Hope Ensemble.
Gabriela holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from New England Conservatory, where she was a student of James Buswell. Gabriela has attended the Aspen Music Festival, the Sarasota Music Festival, and has performed at the Kingston Chamber Music Festival, the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, North Country Chamber Players, Monadnock Music, Apple Hill, Vail Valley Bravo Music Festival, and Cactus Pear Festival, among others. In the summer of 2007 Gabriela acted as Concertmistress under Pierre Boulez at the Lucerne Festival Academy in Lucerne, Switzerland. Devoted to contemporary music, Gabriela has been fortunate to work closely with many significant living composers on their own compositions, namely Pierre Boulez, Magnus Lindberg, Frederic Rzewski, Alvin Lucier, Steve Reich, Brian Ferneyhough, John Zorn, Osvaldo Golijov, Lee Hyla, and Helmut Lachenmann. In 2003 she won the BMOP/NEC concerto competition, playing Zorn’s Contes des Fees with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. She also became the youngest person to ever record the Ligeti Violin Concerto, recorded for Mode Records with New England Conservatory’s Contemporary Ensemble (not yet released). She is actively involved in contemporary music concerts at NEC, Harvard, and MIT, and is a member of the Callithumpian Consort, Firebird and White Rabbit Ensembles. Boston critics have mentioned Gabriela’s “miracles of color, texture and feeling,” “vibrant playing,” “polished technique,” and “elegant, accomplished playing.”