Sirena Huang, recent Gold Medal winner in the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, IN, in September 2022, will be the Guest Soloist with Clinton Symphony Orchestra, on Saturday, November 5. The concert is at 7:30 p.m. in Centennial Auditorium at Sterling High School, 19 E. Miller Road, Sterling, IL.
In addition to the gold medal in the competition, she was also awarded eight-of-eleven special prizes. Huang will perform the Dvorak Violin Concerto, which she played in the final competition at Indianapolis. In addition, she was the winner of the New York Concert Artist Worldwide Debut Audition in 2017, and First Prize Gold Medalist of the 6th International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians. Huang had earned many other awards.
Music Director and Conductor Brian Dollinger will lead the orchestra in Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll. It was first performed by an ensemble, on the stairway outside the room of his second wife, following the birth of their son, Siegfried. Many of its motifs appear later in his opera Siegfried. Additionally, Mendelssohn’s Symphony #3 in A Minor is known as his “Scottish” symphony. It was dedicated to Queen Victoria.
The orchestra is composed of musicians from a wide area of Eastern Iowa and Northwest Illinois. This is the second concert of its 69th season.
“We booked Sirena Huang after she had won the Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition in 2017, but then the pandemic hit,” Executive Director Robert Whipple said. “We’re delighted that the re-scheduling comes so closely after her triumph in Indianapolis.”
The Symphony and Community State Bank have arranged for a bus for concert-goers from Clinton, through Fulton and Morrison, to the concert in Sterling. Reservations are required and can be made by calling 563-219-8084.
Tickets for the concert are available at the door. Adult admission is $20, and all students are admitted free of charge, through the generosity of the Symphony’s many supporters. In addition, an adult who accompanies a student will be admitted for half price.
Full information and program notes are always available on the Symphony’s website at www.clintonsymphony.org.