HAMPTON ROADS, VA [March 14, 2018] –Under the baton of Resident Conductor Benjamin Rous, the Virginia Symphony Orchestra will present its season finale in the 2017-18 Williamsburg Classics Series.
The program opens with Mozart’s Overture toDon Giovanni before William Walton’s viola concerto, featuring Juilliard graduate and Chesapeake, VA native Andrew Gonzalez. The concerto is an emotionally gripping piece and is arguably the first great viola concerto of the 20th century.
The performance concludes with Mozart’s Symphony No. 35. Also called the Haffner Symphony, the work has a spirited first movement that is, Mozart said, to be played with fire, followed by an unhurried, graceful second movement, a bright, atmospheric third, and ending in a fervid finale that Mozart advised be played “as fast as possible.”
The concert will be on
Friday, March 23, 8 p.m. at CrossWalk Church in Williamsburg (7575 Richmond
Rd, Williamsburg, VA 23188).
Tickets start at $25 and can be purchased by calling 757.892.6366, visiting www.virginiasymphony.org or visiting the Virginia Symphony Box Office at 150 Boush Street, Suite 201, Norfolk, VA 23510 from 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., Monday – Friday. Forgroup sales of 10 or more, call 757.892.6366.
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Under the leadership of GRAMMY-winning music director JoAnn Falletta, the Virginia Symphony Orchestra is Virginia’s preeminent professional symphony orchestra with a mission of inspiring, educating and connecting audiences of all ages.
Founded in 1921, it is ranked in the top ten percent of professional orchestras nationwide and serves the entire Southeastern Virginia region with Classics, Pops and Family concert series in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Newport News and Williamsburg as well as performances in outlying Virginia and North Carolina communities, reaching nearly 150,000 concert-goers every year. Additionally, the orchestra annually reaches 45,000 children, students and lifelong learners with its education and community programs. The Virginia Symphony has performed at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center and is the cornerstone of the performing arts in Hampton Roads.
Hailed by The Strad magazine
for his “mellow tone and jovial playing,”
Andrew Gonzalez is a soloist and chamber musician based in New York. He has collaborated with world class artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Gil Shaham, Schmuel Ashkenasi, Nobuko Imai as well as members of the Orion and Cleveland Quartet. Andrew is currently a member of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect (
formerly known as Ensemble ACJW). As part of his fellowship with Ensemble Connect, Gonzalez teaches at PS 226 Alfred De B. Mason in Brooklyn. He performs frequently at Barge music, a concert series in Brooklyn. His most recent concerts there include a Mozart piano quartets with violinist Mark Peskanov, a New York premiere of Joel Friedman’s solo viola work “when a world disintegrates before your eyes,” and a solo viola recital performing both Brahms viola sonatas. Gonzalez performs regularly with Sejong Soloists, a Korean ensemble based in New York City, and has toured with them all over Europe and Asia. He is on the sublist
for the New York Philharmonic and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and plays with them frequently. Gonzalez recently performed the Brahms songs
for Mezzo, Viola, and Piano at the Morgan Library recital series with James Levine’s assistant Ken Noda and Sarah Mesko, a frequent singer at the Metropolitan opera.
In 2014, Gonzalez began playing the baroque viola and took lessons with Cynthia Roberts at the Juilliard School. Gonzalez performs in a baroque and classical ensemble in New York called Quodlibet and have had a chance to work with a lot of musicians who have come through Juilliard 415 and Yale Baroque programs. Gonzalez has performed at American Bach Soloists and Valley of the Moon and looks forward to returning this summer.
Gonzalez graduated from Grassfield High School in 2010. He also attended the Governors School for the Arts where he studied with Stacey Migliozzi and Amy Davis. Gonzalez received his undergraduate and masters degrees from The Juilliard School under the direction of Heidi Castleman, Hsin-Yun Huang, Steve Tenenbom, and Michael Tree. He has participated in music festivals including the Verbier Academy, Music@Menlo, the Perlman Music Program, Heifetz Institute, Sarasota Music Festival and many others. As part of the Perlman Music Program, he went on a tour with Itzhak Perlman and other alumni to Mexico, Canada, and Virginia performing Mendelssohn and Shostakovich octets. The Heifetz Institute also has a off season tour schedule and he plays with alumni of the program frequently. He frequently appears at the Heifetz institute as an artist in residence and looks forward to being there this summer on chamber faculty of the PEG program. Andrew plays on a 1930 Frederick Haenel modeled after a Gasparo da Saló.