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Renowned Trumpet Professor from the Crane School of Music, Dr. John Ellis, will solo on trumpet and flugelhorn when the Orchestra of Northern New York presents its winter concert,  Baroque and Beyond.  Dr. Nelly Maude Case, Professor Emerita of the Crane School of Music in Potsdam, will join Maestro Kenneth Andrews for a pre-concert lecture 45 minutes before each performance. 

Two performances are slated for 7:30 p.m., Saturday, March 21 at SUNY Potsdam’s Hosmer Hall and 3:00 p.m., Sunday, March 22 at the First Presbyterian Church, 403 Washington Street, Watertown. 

The Potsdam concert is sponsored by an individual who donated $3,000 and wishes to remain anonymous. 

The Program

The program opens with the high energy of Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto for Strings (Concerto alla rustica), followed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s contemporary work, Concerto Grosso (1985), based on Handel’s D Major Violin Sonata. The haunting sounds of Richard Peaslee’s Night Songs (1973) precedes the closing work, Joseph Haydn’s masterful Symphony No. 45 in F# Minor (Farewell).

Featured Soloist

photo_Ellis.jpeg

Former Principal Trumpet of the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, he is Principal Trumpet of the Orchestra of Northern New York and a member the Potsdam Brass Quintet. He is retiring this May as a Professor of Music at The Crane School of Music. He is also an Edwards Performing Artist.

Pre-Concert Conversation

ONNY is delighted that Dr. Nelly Maude Case is returning to the North Country from her retirement home in Los Alamos, New Mexico, to enlighten audience members with her comments about the repertoire for this concert. She will speak at 6:45 p.m., Saturday, March 21 and at 2:15 p.m., Sunday, March 22.

Dr. Case taught courses in music history, theory, and women in music for 25 years. She served as organist and bell choir director at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Canton from 1989-2016 and played viola in the Orchestra of Northern New York from 1991-2016.  She also published biographies of two Crane icons: Worry Early: The Life of Brock McElheran (2006) and Helen Hosmer: The Spirit of Crane (2011).

Since retiring to Los Alamos, she has become choirmaster at Trinity on the Hill (Episcopal Church), taught music appreciation at the University of New Mexico, and played violin and viola in the Los Alamos and Roswell Symphonies. 

Tickets are available through the CPS box office at 315-267-2277, online at www.onny.org, and in downtown Potsdam at Brick and Mortar Music, 15 Market Street. They are $27 for adults, $22 for seniors and military personnel, $10 for college students and $5 for teens (13-17). Children, 12 and younger, are admitted free to all ONNY concerts. 

ONNY is funded, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts, a  state agency with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the NYS Legislature. The Watertown concert is sponsored, in part, by the Northern New York Community Foundation.

ONNY is a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit, founded in 1988 by Music Director and Conductor Kenneth Andrews. In the first half of the 2019-2020 season, ONNY received $74,715 in donations from individuals, businesses and foundation - 79% of its annual goal of $94,675. This year’s budget is $216,425.

For more info or to become an ONNY donor, contact Executive Director Kathy Del Guidice at 315-267-3251 or onnybusiness@gmail.com

(Photos: Nelly Maude Case, John Ellis)

POTSDAM – Praised for her “thrilling blend of fury and finesse” (San Antonio Express-News) and her “winning combination of passion, imagination and integrity” (New York Concert Review), internationally acclaimed piano soloist Ms. Young-Ah Tak will be the featured soloist in ONNY’s fall concert, Beethoven. 

Performances are 7:30 p.m., Saturday, October 19 at Hosmer Hall, SUNY Potsdam and 3:00 p.m., Sunday, October 20 at First Presbyterian Church, Watertown. 

A donor reception is being co-hosted for major supporters of ONNY and WPBS immediately following the Sunday concert in the church’s Fellowship Hall. The event is by invitation only.

Ms. Tak enjoys a remarkable career that has taken her throughout the United States, Canada, Austria, Germany, Italy, her native Korea, and Japan.

She earned her Bachelor of Music degree from Julliard, her Master of Music and Graduate Diploma from the New England Conservatory, and her Doctor of Musical Arts from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.

She made her New York City debut at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Alice Tully Hall with the Julliard Orchestra. Other notable performances have taken place at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater in Philadelphia, and many others around the world.

Her performances have been broadcast in New York City, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Ontario, and in Korea. Ms. Tak has been awarded top prizes in numerous international competitions.

Currently, she serves as an Associate Professor of Piano and is the Founding Artistic Director of the Crane International Piano Festival.  She is a Steinway Artist.

The concert opens with Beethoven’s Triumphant March from Tarpeja,(1813), followed by Ms. Tak’s rendition of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15 (1795/rev.1800). After a brief intermission, the 48-piece professional orchestra will perform program Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68 “Pastoral – Sinfonie oder Erinnerung an das Landeleben” (“Pastoral Symphony or Remembering Country Life”)., conducted by Maestro Kenneth Andrews.

The Orchestra of Northern New York is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. It is sponsored, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the NYS Legislature, and by the Northern New York Community Foundation.  

Tickets are $27 adults, $22 seniors and military personnel, $10 college students, and $5 teens (13-17). Children, 12 and under, are admitted free to all ONNY concerts.

For tickets or more information, contact the Community Performance Series box office at 315-267-2277 or visit www.onny.org to purchase tickets online. They may also be obtained at brick and Mortar Music, 15 Market St., Potsdam.

Dear Friends & Patrons,

Welcome to the 32nd season of the Orchestra of Northern New York. With a wide array of brilliant orchestral masterpieces from our classics to our pops series, we invite you to join us and Experience the Passion of Live Music from virtuosic soloists and exceptional professional musicians from Northern New York and beyond. 

Thank you for your generous and continued support over these many years. We look forward to seeing you at our concerts.

Kenneth Andrews, Music Director

POTSDAM - The Orchestra of Northern New York, the North Country's only year-round symphony orchestra, has received a five-year commitment to sponsor the exceptionally gifted students from the Crane School of Music who are selected for the ONNY Apprenticeship Program. The students are paid as young professionals.

The donation comes from The Secret Sits Pro Musica Ensembles, Inc. (TSS, Inc.), a charitable nonprofit organization founded in 2017 in memory of Marie A. Patten, of Athens, GA and the Gull Pond Community in the Piercefield, NY area. TSS, Inc. is incorporated in Georgia and New York.

Marie Patten was educated in New York City public schools and went on to earn BA, MSW and PhD degrees at the College of William and Mary and the University of Georgia. Her love of music grew throughout her life. An avid opera- and concert-goer, she would leave chamber music performances and frequently comment to the effect that the world would be a better place if that kind of music was on street corners. It is that sentiment, and the pursuit of related goals finding root around it, to which TSS, Inc. is now dedicated -- Better Music, Better World.

Marie was very fond of poetry, and wrote some herself. A personal encounter with Robert Frost when she was young became indelible in her life, and this is reflected in "The Secret Sits" being the title of one of Frost's poems:

We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

"It is a wonderful opportunity for Crane students to perform with a professional symphony orchestra," says Kenneth Andrews, who founded the orchestra in 1988. "They are held to the same high standards as the other musicians, and the experience fosters discipline and professionalism."

"We are most grateful for this generous gift. It truly is transformational for the orchestra," Andrews continued.

ONNY is celebrating its 31st season of music that inspires and excites. It is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is "to enrich the quality of life in Northern New York and engage area youth by inspiring the enjoyment and appreciation of music through live performances by professional musicians." It is funded, in part, by the Northern New York Community Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

For more information about ONNY, call 315-267-3251 or visit www.onny.org.