First Parish Bedford UU

SCHUMANN BY CANDLELIGHT

A 3-part Concert Series celebrating the composer's bicentennial year

Subscription tickets for the series (3 concerts) are $35 for adults and $24 for students/seniors. Single-event tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for students/seniors. Accompanied children under 12 are welcome without charge.

Advance tickets are available in the church office, or by calling the office at 781-275-7994. First Parish is located at 75 The Great Road (Rtes 4/62/225) in Bedford.

Part 2: The Intimate Schumann

Programme

Fantasiestücke, Op. 72 by Robert Schumann
Elizabeth Connors, clarinet; Eva Ostrovsky, piano

Fairy Tales, op. 132 by Robert Schumann
Elizabeth Connors, clarinet; Jing-Huey Wei, viola; Eva Ostrovsky, piano

Forest Scenes, Op. 82 by Robert Schumann
Bradford Conner, piano

Romances, Op. 94 by Robert Schumann
Bradford Conner, piano; Carol Epple, flute

Three Songs for Duet, Op. 43 by Robert Schumann (transcribed and arranged by Conner)
Bradford Conner, piano; Carol Epple, flute; Elizabeth Connors, clarinet

About the Artists

Bradford Conner, piano, has been music director at First Parish, Bedford, for over five years. Conner performs regularly with baritone Benjamin Sears in the United States and England, and with Conner has made ten commercially released CDs of music by Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Noel Coward and others from the Great American Songbook. Conner has degrees in musicology and performance, summa cum laude, from West Virginia University (Morgantown, WV).

Elizabeth Connors, clarinet, has been a member of First Parish in Bedford since 2001. A clarinetist and music teacher by training, she has performed with large ensembles as well as in chamber music venues in the greater Boston area, and has coached chamber music and taught private pupils at MIT, Harvard, and the Lane and John Glenn Middle Schools in Bedford.

Carol Epple, flute, is a long-time member of First Parish in Bedford and has performed throughout the Boston area with Boston Baroque, the Cambridge Society for Early Music, the Handel & Haydn Society, Kammerwerke, and for Young Audiences. Currently on the faculties of the Longy School of Music, Powers Music School and the Middlesex School, she received degrees from Brown University and the New England Conservatory.

Eva Ostrovsky, piano, made her recital debut at the age of 14 in Russia. She has performed internationally (including a solo recital in the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Washington on a piano that had belonged to Ignaz Paderewski) and has won numerous piano competitions. A native of Nizny Novgorod in Russia, she studied with her father, pianist and harpsichordist Valery Ostrovsky, and later in the Gnessin Academy of Music in Moscow. She holds a Bachelor degree in piano performance from Academy of Music in Tel-Aviv, Israel; a Masters of Music from the Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati; and a graduate diploma from the New England Conservatory of Music. A music teacher at the Lincoln School in Melrose, Eva is raising her family in an atmosphere of music, the arts and love.

Jing Huey Wei, viola, a native of Taiwan, came to the US to study viola at Boston University with Steven Ansell, principal violist of the Boston Symphony. She is currently the conductor of the middle and elementary school string orchestras for the Arlington Public Schools. Her middle school string orchestra has been chosen to perform at the Massachusetts Music Educators Association All State Conference in 2010. As a freelance violist. Ms. Wei plays with the Indian Hill Symphony and is the principal violist and assistant conductor with the Waltham Symphony.