Playing 'Favorites'
The Butler County Symphony Orchestra presents the second concert of the 63rd season at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Butler Intermediate High School auditorium.
The theme for the season is “A Night Of…,” and this concert will focus on “A Night of Favorites.”
The featured guest artist will be pianist Alvin Zhu, who previously performed with the symphony in November 2006 while a student at Mount Lebanon.
His parents are members of the orchestra: his father, Huan Zhu, is principal violist, and his mother is cellist Qing Zhang.
The younger Zhu is a student at the Juilliard School in New York City and has a string of competition prizes to his name, including first place at the Aikens-Cadman competition in Pittsburgh.
He attended the Aspen Music Festival in 2008 and has acquired substantial performing experience with orchestras, including the McGill Symphony Orchestra in Montreal.
He also conducts, composes, plays violin, viola, drum set, guitar and sings. He was concertmaster of the Mount Lebanon High School Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Haihua Youth Orchestra. He performed with the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association Honor String Orchestra in 2005 and was its principal viola in 2008.
Zhu has composed five songs, all of which include original lyrics, music, orchestration and vocals. His two songs, “Do You Love Me Too?” and “Lovely Star” received honorable mention in the 16th Billboard World Song contest.
His other two songs “Let Me Try” and “Starlight” won the runnerup status of 2008 in the Song of the Year song and lyric competition. The songs can be heard at www.alvinzhu.com under “My Music.”
For the Saturday concert, he will perform Prokofiev's “Piano Concerto No. 3.”
The orchestra also will perform von Suppe's “Light Cavalry Overture,” a piece with high spirits and melodic charm, along with Mussorgsky's “Night on Bald Mountain” and the rousing “1812 Overture” by Tchaikovsky.
<B>WHO: </B>Butler County Symphony Orchestra<B>WHAT: </B>“Night of Favorites”<B>WHEN: </B>7:30 p.m. Saturday<B>WHERE: </B>Butler Intermediate High School auditorium<B>TICKETS: </B>Reserved seat tickets are $15 in advance and available at the symphony office, 259 S. Main St. Prices are $20 at the door. Student tickets are $5.<B>INFO: </B>724-283-1402 or www.butlersymphony.org
