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Two award-winning composers will be on hand to introduce their works when the Warren Philharmonic Orchestra performs their pieces for its opening concert of the 2023-24 season at First Presbyterian Church.
Music Director and conductor Susan Davenny Wyner didn't have to look far for one of the composers -- she lives with him. The orchestra will perform "Epilogue" by Pulitzer Prize recipient and Grammy Award-winning composer Yehudi Wyner.
Yehudi Wyner is no stranger to WPO audiences. In addition to occasionally accompanying his wife on her trips to Warren from their home in Boston, he performed George Gershwin's Concerto for Piano in F Minor as part of the 2005-06 season, and he composed a piece for the orchestra's Strings of Joy students to perform in 2013. However, this is the first time the orchestra has performed one of his orchestral compositions.
Yehudi Wyner has penned more than 100 works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, solo voice and solo instruments. He has received commissions from Carnegie Hall, the Boston Symphony, the BBC Philharmonic, The Library of Congress, The Ford Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts and others.
Also appearing at Sunday's concert will be Margaret Brouwer, who was the head of the composition department at Cleveland Institute of Music from 1996 to 2008. Her honors include an Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, Ohio Council for the Arts Individual Fellowship, Cleveland Arts Prize and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, New Music USA and Ford Foundation.
Susan Davenny Wyner described Brouwer's "Sizzle" as, "A razzle-dazzle piece, which grew out of her hearing snatches of hip-hop booming out of a car next to her when she was stopped at a traffic light. By contrast, Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award winner Yehudi Wyner's 'Epilogue' is warmly emotional and lures us into a strange and beautiful landscape. These two American pieces create strikingly different worlds in a short span of time."
Other selections that will be performed by the 45-member orchestra include Bedrich Smetana's "Dance of the Comedians," Franz Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony No. 8 and Suite No. 1 from Georges Bizet's opera "Carmen." Susan Davenny Wyner will conduct the orchestra for Opera Western Reserve's production of "Carmen" on Nov. 17 at Powers Auditorium in Youngstown.
According to the conductor, "I am excited by the variety, color and emotional worlds the music will draw us into. I always think of a program as a 'voyage,' taking us to unexpected places while at the same time answering our need for deep comforting emotional solace -- especially in these times."
If you go …
WHAT: "Colorful Journeys" -- Warren Philharmonic Orchestra with Susan Davenny Wyner, conductor
WHEN: 3 p.m. Sunday
WHERE: First Presbyterian Church, 256 Mahoning Ave. NW, Warren
HOW MUCH: $30 for adults, $15 for students and free for children 12 and younger when accompanied by a paying adult. For more information, go to www.warren philharmonic.org or call 330-399-3606.