THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 4, 1995 TAG: 9506020089
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARK MOBLEY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 112 lines
VIRGINIA SYMPHONY cellist David Alan Harrell is playing chamber music Tuesday in Virginia Beach.
If you want to hear him again, you'll have to buy a Cleveland Orchestra CD.
Harrell is one of a handful of local musicians appearing in recital this week. What makes Tuesday's free concert at First Presbyterian Church in Virginia Beach bittersweet is that most of the performers are headed for greener pastures.
If the improved sound of the Virginia Symphony weren't ample evidence of its increased talent, this sudden drain on personnel is. This turnover is another example of the kind of accomplished player the orchestra now attracts.
Harrell, 24, just won a seat in one of the world's finest orchestras. Clarinetist Paul Cigan finished his one-year appointment to the Virginia Symphony by winning the principal clarinet position job with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra in Denver.
Pianist Jennifer Peterson is leaving the coaching and accompanying staff of Virginia Opera to join Opera Memphis. These players will be heard with sopranos Emily Labidi and Linda Van Wagner in music of Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert.
Harrell attended the same Spartanburg, S.C., high school as Virginia Symphony co-principal cellist Michael Daniels did a few years before. After graduation, Harrell attended the University of Alabama, a school better known for football than orchestral music.
``A lot of people told me, `Don't go there, you'll never make anything of yourself,' '' Harrell recalled before rehearsal last week. But he felt that the sudden shift from a small town to a major conservatory would probably have been overwhelming.
``I had a really good teacher who spent a lot of time with me,'' he said. His next school was the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied under Cleveland Orchestra principal Stephen Geber. Harrell also performed with the Canton (Ohio) Symphony Orchstra and Erie (Pa.) Philharmonic. He joined the Virginia Symphony for the season just completed, and auditioned for the Cleveland Orchestra two weeks ago.
``Auditions were at Severance Hall, and just to think of all the great artists who've played ther over the last century, it was unbelieveable,'' he said. ``My stomach was burning, and my whole body was on fire.''
Music director Christoph von Dohnanyi asked Harrell to play one passage from Brahms Third Symphony a few times, but that was the only hitch - until Harrell met Dohnanyi in his office and accidentally sat in the conductor's chair.
Harrell's own chair is at the back of the section. ``I think it's the best orchestra in the country right now. I'm gonna feel such pressure because that orchestra, more than any other, strives for perfection - critics of the orchestra think - almost to a fault.''
And he may get a formidable stand partner. Harrell noted that superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma sometimes plays in the back of the cello section after playing a concerto. ``We're playing with Yo-Yo Ma in September. I may be sitting next to him.''
Harrell said he will miss the friendliness of the Virginia Symphony.
``The whole year a bunch of guys have gotten together to watch `Monday Night Football' and hang out,'' he said. In Cleveland, ``people are understandably going to have their own families and go to work and leave their work there. The camaraderie - not that that's not there, but we're all in this together here. We realize it's not the greatest situation, but we all band together because of that.'' MEMPHIS BOUND
In between rehearsing with the Virginia Opera Chorus and touring with the company's educational shows, Peterson has popped up in unexpected places. She was behind the synthesizer in ``Simon Bolivar.'' She played celesta and organ with the Virginia Symphony, and even sat at the last stand of second violins for the Mahler Symphony No. 5.
Now the 27-year-old Oberlin Conservatory and Indiana University graduate is building on her experience at Virginia Opera and Greater Miami Opera by heading to Memphis. She will continue her coaching career with Opera Memphis director and composer Michael Ching, a former Virginia Opera staffer.
``I said I would try this for a few years until getting burned out,'' Peterson said this week. ``There are so many horrible people in the field; if that's what it's like I don't want to stay in it. I like Michael Ching a lot. I know him and I trust him. I think it'll lead me to a lot of things.''
Her rehearsal work with ``Bolivar'' so impressed a New York City Opera coach that she was invited to the Israel Vocal Arts Institute this summer. And she is considering an offer from Ching to conduct her first production of Mozart's ``Marriage of Figaro.'' DATEBOOK
Virginia Symphony, ``Pops from Broadway to Hollywood'' featuring music from Disney films and Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes. 7 p.m. Thursday at the Norfolk Botanical Garden, Azalea Garden Road, Norfolk. Gates open at 5 p.m. Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 at the gate and may be purchased after parking your vehicle. Student and military tickets are half-price. To order, call 623-2310.
The Cantata Chorus, an amateur ensemble based at Christ and St. Luke's Church in Norfolk, is holding auditions Monday through Wednesday. In the 1995-96 season, the chorus will perform Christmas music and major works of Handel and J.S. Bach. For more information, call 627-5665 or 622-4542. MEMO: Send your notices to Roy A. Bahls, The Virginian-Pilot and The
Ledger-Star, 150 W. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk, Va. 23510. Fax 446-2963.
Include description of event, admission charge, time, date, location and
phone. Call Mark Mobley at 446-2783, write to the above address or send
electronic mail to mobley(AT)infi.net. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
TAMARA VONINSKI/Staff
From left, cellist David Alan Harrell, clarinetist Paul Cigan and
pianist Jennifer Peterson will be performing a recital Tuesday in
Virginia Beach.
by CNB