Northwest Symphony Concludes 60th Season with Pops Concert

The Northwest Symphony Orchestra will conclude its 60th anniversary season with a Pops Concert on Sunday May 6, 2012, at 3:30 PM, in the Theatre for the Performing Arts at Maine West High School, 1755 S. Wolf Road in Des Plaines.  The concert features this year’s winner of the Paul Vermel Young Artist Award, cellist Austin Huntington, who will perform Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor. Under the direction of its award-winning conductor, Paul Vermel, the orchestra will also play Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to West Side Story, a Gershwin Medley arranged by Chuck Sayre, highlights from Richard

Rodgers’ The King and I, and Johann Strauss Jr.’s Tändelei (Flirtation) Polka/Mazurka.

Austin Huntington, a student of Richard Hirschl, is the recipient of numerous Grand Prize and First Place awards on both national and international levels.   At the age of 10, he made his solo orchestral debut and since has performed as guest soloist with many orchestras.  He made his  Carnegie Hall debut in New York in 2009 and later that year  was selected as one of six United States cellists invited to compete in the 2009 Rostropovich International

Cello Competition in Paris.  He is currently the principal cellist of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra (CYSO) and Encore, the CYSO’s premiere performing ensemble.   In past years he has served as the principal cellist of the South Bend Youth Symphony Orchestra (2004-2006) and as cellist with the SBYSO String Quartet.  Mr. Huntington’s summer studies have included the Perlman Music Program in Shelter Island, New York; the Aspen Music Festival School in Aspen, Colorado; the Quartet Program in Fredonia, New York; the Academie Internationale de Musique de Montpellier, France; the Meadowmount School of Music, New York; Indiana University String Academy in Bloomington, Indiana; Credo Chamber Music Festival in Oberlin, Ohio; and the U.S. Eastern Music in Colgate, New York.    Mr. Huntington is seventeen years old and a twelfth grade High Honors student at Saint Joseph’s High School in South Bend, Indiana.  He plays on a cello made ca. 1690 by Francesco Ruggeri of Cremona.

Preceding the concert at 2:30, Carolyn Paulin, producer and program host at radio station WFMT 98.7 will present a free commentary on the music to follow.

Individual concert tickets are $20.00 for adults, $15.00 for seniors, and $10.00 for students. Children under age 14 are admitted free when accompanied by a paying adult.  Tickets will be available at the door on the day of the concert.  Those who wish to purchase tickets in advance can mail requests and payment checks to the Northwest Symphony Orchestra,

PO Box 46, Mt. Prospect, IL 60056, or order online at the orchestra’s web site, www.northwestsymphony.org, where payment may be made with PayPal or credit card.

This concert is sponsored in part by The Moorings of Arlington Heights.