Barton College/Wilson Symphony to Feature Pianist Beth Levin on Nov. 18

WILSON, N.C. — The Barton College/Wilson Symphony Orchestra will present their annual Fall Concert on Sunday, Nov. 18, at 3 p.m. in the Lauren Kennedy and Alan Campbell Theatre on the Barton College campus. The orchestra, conducted by music director Mark N. Peterson, will welcome pianist Beth Levin to the Barton stage. Among the performance selections will be two standards of the classical repertoire: Mozart’s “Symphony No. 29 in A major, K201 and Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54.

Admission for the fall orchestra performance will be $10 at the door or by season ticket. All students within the community will be admitted free of charge as well as faculty, staff and students of Barton College. For additional information, please contact Laura Ashley Lamm at 252-399-6309 or email: lalamm@barton.edu.

Levin’s playing style can only be described as one of complete and selfless immersion into music, aided by an impeccable technique and an understanding that can be traced back to her unique artistic lineage. Levin, a former child prodigy who made her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at age 12, was subsequently taught and guided by legendary pianists such as Rudolph Serkin, Leonard Shure, Dorothy Taubman, and Paul Badura-Skoda (who praised her as a pianist of rare qualities and the highest professional caliber). It is this lineage that allows Levin to connect the golden age of the great Romantic interpreters to the modern musical landscape and lends itself to her astonishing interpretive ease with all music, whether written one hundred years ago or one hundred days ago.

As a concerto soloist, Levin has appeared with The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Boston Pops Orchestra, the Boston Civic Symphony, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, and numerous other symphony orchestras throughout the Americas, working with noted conductors such as Arthur Fiedler, Tonu Kalam, Milton Katims, Joseph Silverstein, and Benjamin Zander.

Chamber music festival collaborations have brought her to the Marlboro Festival, Casals Festival, Harvard, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Ankara Music Festival, and the Blue Hill Festival, collaborating with such groups such as the Gramercy Trio (founding member), the Audubon Quartet, the Vermeer Quartet and the Trio Borealis with whom she has toured extensively.

Among Levin’s many recordings, her renderings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, (Centaur Records, 2008) and Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations (Centaur Records, 2011) stand as two of her most crowning achievements. Her interpretation of the Diabelli Variations has been described as “consistently fascinating” (Steve Smith, NY Times) and simply “stunning” (Robert Levine, Stereophile Magazine) Of her Goldberg Variations, it is said that she plays “as if she is in love with the notes…with always the sense that she is exploring Bach’s genius” (Peter Burwasser, Fanfare Magazine) Her performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio, WGBH (Boston), WFMT (Chicago) and WNYC, WNYE and WQXR (New York).

Levin remains committed to the performance of newly written works, collaborating with composers such as Henryk Groecki, Louis Karchin, and Michael Rose, among many others. Her closest relationships remain with composers David Del Tredici and Andrew Rudin, both of whom have written works for her.

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Questions? Please contact Kathy Daughety, director of public relations, at 252-399-6529 or email: kdaughety@barton.edu.