FARMINGTON — Mt. Blue high-school senior Gianluca Pane will be the featured violin soloist when the University of Maine at Farmington Community Orchestra presents its final concert of the season on Sunday, May 6.
Under the direction of Trond Saeverud, the orchestra will perform Jean Sibelius’ Violin Concerto, Richard Strauss’ Serenade in E-flat for 13 wind instrument, and Gioacchino Rossini’s “William Tell Overture.”
Sibelius’ violin concerto is his only major instrumental concerto, and it is no surprise that he chose the violin; the young composer’s first major ambition was to become a great violinist. From the age of 15 until he was 25, he devoted most of his time and energy toward this goal, without much success. The concerto is sometimes seen as a sad farewell to this dream and a demonstration of his strong feeling for the instrument.
Strauss was about 18 years old when he composed his “Wind Serenade.” Influenced by his father’s conservative musical taste, he stayed close to the style of Mozart and Haydn; still, there are moments that reveal an already awakened taste for romantic harmony and a desire for drama.
Rossini’s “Overture to William Tell” is a musical portrait of the legendary archer who was captured by the tyrant Gessler and ordered to demonstrate his prowess by shooting an arrow through an apple sitting on the head of his son. Besides the famous cavalry charge at the end of the piece, most commonly associated with the Lone Ranger, the overture also includes depictions of a beautiful dawn in the Swiss Alps and the calling of cowherds’ pipes.
Pane, soloist in the Sibelius piece, was introduced to the violin in the string program at the Academy Hill School in Wilton conducted by Steve Muise. He joined the UMF Community Orchestra in the eighth grade. He was associate concertmaster of the Maine All State Orchestra in 2010, and concertmaster in 2011.
For the last two summers, he participated in the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival Program for Maine Students. He was winner of the Bay Chamber Music Festival’s Young Stars of Maine Competition in 2011, is a recipient of the Princeton Book Award and is a National Merit Scholarship finalist. He will graduate from Mt. Blue High School in June and will be attending Brown University in the fall.
Saeverud, director of the UMF Community Orchestra and instructor of violin, has performed as violin soloist with major orchestras in Europe and in the United States, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center in New York City. He is concertmaster of the Bangor Symphony, first violin in the Nor’easter String Quartet, artistic director of the Harald Saeverud Chamber Music Program, and founder and conductor of the new Passamaquoddy Bay Symphony Orchestra with musicians from Canada and the United States.
The concert will begin at 3 p.m., in Nordica Auditorium. Admission is $8 for adults, $6 for seniors; children admitted free.
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