All-Russian orchestral program features student violin soloist
Photo: (From the top) Anthony Princiotti conducts the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra; violin soloist Alexander
Styk.
HANOVER, NH—The Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra explores the breadth of Russian orchestral music on
Saturday, March 1, in a program of Stravinsky,
Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky that features a
Dartmouth senior playing a virtuosic violin solo. The
concert takes place at 8 pm in the Hop's Spaulding
Auditorium. Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for youth
and $5 for Dartmouth students.
The program presents Stravinsky’s L'oiseau de feu
(The Firebird) Concert Suite for Orchestra No.2
(1919), with exotic chromaticism and imaginative
orchestration; Mussorgsky’s majestic Pictures at an
Exhibition, written in 1874 as a piano suite and
orchestrated by Ravel 48 years later; and
Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35
(1878), one of the most loved violin concertos ever
written, going from lyrical syncopation, to a Slavic-inflected second movement, to scintillating, fingers-on-fire
finale. Alexander Styk '14 plays the virtuosic solo.
Styk, an Economics major who plans to join a Boston financial consulting
firm upon graduation this spring, began violin at age 4. A native of the
Rochester, NY, area, he studied through grade school and high school
with teachers at Rochester's Hochstein School of Music & Dance and
world-famous Eastman School of Music. He placed first in a number of
solo competitions in the Rochester area, including the Rochester
Philharmonic League Young Artist Competition, the Geneseo Young Artist
Competition, and the David Hochstein Recital Competition, featuring a
live broadcast of the final performance on WXXI Public Radio. Other
notable achievements include placing third in the national finals of the
Canadian Music Competition, 16-year-old category; a television highlight
with the Scholastic Arts Spotlight on Rochester-area television; and a solo
performance with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
At Dartmouth, he has studied with DSO conductor Anthony Princiotti,
who is a concert violinist; and he has played with the DSO as first violinist
since his freshman year. To be selected to play the concerto with the
DSO, he auditioned last spring for Princiotti.
Along with conducting the DSO, Princiotti is the Music Director of the New Hampshire Philharmonic
Orchestra and the Principal Guest Conductor of the Vermont Symphony. He received his Doctor of Music
degree from the Yale School of Music and a Bachelor of Music degree from the Juilliard School. He was
awarded a conducting fellowship at Tanglewood, where he studied with Leonard Bernstein, Gustav Meier
and Seiji Ozawa. He has been a recipient of the Marshall Bartholomew Scholarship, the Charles Ives Scholarship and the Yale School of Music Alumni Association Prize. Between 1981 and 1987, he was first violinist
with the Apple Hill Chamber Players and has appeared as a guest conductor with the Calgary Philharmonic,
Vermont Symphony, New England String Ensemble, Hartford Symphony, San Paolo State Symphony, Yale
Philharmonic, Norfolk Festival Orchestra, Pioneer Valley Symphony and the Young Artists Philharmonic. As a
member of the faculty of Dartmouth College since 1992, he holds the rank of Senior Lecturer in Music. His
recording of Telemann’s Twelve Fantasias for Unaccompanied Violin was recently released. He is the author
of more than eighty articles about orchestral music.
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RELEVANT LINKS
https://hop.dartmouth.edu/Online/140301_dso
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CALENDAR LISTING:
Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra in concert
The DSO explores the breadth of Russian orchestral music with Stravinsky’s Suite from The Firebird (1919),
with exotic chromaticism and imaginative orchestration; Mussorgsky/Ravel’s majestic Pictures at an
Exhibition, written in 1874 as a piano suite and orchestrated by Ravel 48 years later; and Tchaikovsky’s Violin
Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 (1878), with violinist Alexander Styk ‘14. One of the most loved violin concertos
ever written, the work goes from lyrical syncopation, to a Slavic-inflected second movement, to scintillating,
fingers-on-fire finale. Anthony Princiotti, conductor.
Saturday, Mar 1, 8 pm
Spaulding Auditorium, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Hanover NH
$15, $10 youth, $5 Dartmouth students
Information: hop.dartmouth.edu, 603.646.2422
* * *
Founded in 1962, the Hopkins Center for the Arts is a multi-disciplinary academic, visual and performing
arts center dedicated to uncovering insights, igniting passions, and nurturing talents to help Dartmouth and
the surrounding Upper Valley community engage imaginatively and contribute creatively to our world. Each
year the Hop presents more than 300 live events and films by visiting artists as well as Dartmouth students
and the Dartmouth community, and reaches more than 22,000 Upper Valley residents and students with
outreach and arts education programs. After a celebratory 50th-anniversary season in 2012-13, the Hop
enters its second half-century with renewed passion for mentoring young artists, supporting the
development of new work, and providing a laboratory for participation and experimentation in the arts.
CONTACT:
Rebecca Bailey, Publicity Coordinator/Writer
Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College
rebecca.a.bailey@dartmouth.edu
603.646.3991