2008 Year in Review

Symphony Concert Will Feature Morrison Native

Morrison native son, pianist Robert Elfline, will be the featured soloist with the Clinton Symphony Orchestra this weekend in a program of music by Mozart and Beethoven. Concert time is 8:00 p.m. Saturday [November 15] in the Morrison High School auditorium.

Rob Elfline graduated from Morrison High School 15 years ago. He has since earned degrees from Illinois Wesleyan University and Rice University in Houston, and recently completed the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music.

Currently Dr. Elfline is on the music faculty of Augustana College in Rock Island, where his duties include instruction of private lessons for piano majors, group piano classes for music students, and general music courses for students outside the music department. Prior to returning to this area, he held teaching posts at Humboldt State University and the University of Cincinnati.

His performance with the Symphony will be in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, a work written by Mozart with himself as soloist for a performance in late18th century Vienna. The concerto will be preceded by the overture to Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, based on the story of the legendary Don Juan, and composed at about the same time as the concerto.

The program, titled by conductor Brian Dollinger as "The Wolfgang/Ludwig Connection," will conclude the the first symphony of Beethoven. Dollinger's intent is to have the audience hear the connection - the passing of the artistic torch - from Mozart to Beethoven as both lived and worked in Vienna around the turn of the 19th century.

The concert is the second in the Symphony's 55th season. Complete program notes for this concert as well as information for the coming concerts of the season are available on the Symphony's website.

Advance tickets for Saturday's concert are available at England Music Center in Clinton, Fitzgerald Pharmacy in Morrison and Grummert's Hardware in Sterling, and tickets will be available at the door of the concert. Adult admission is $12, with a $5 ticket for high school and college students. Students through eighth grade are admitted free of charge as part of the Symphony's ongoing interest in music education. Maps to the concert site are available at the ticket locations and on the Symphony's website.

by  Editor, theCity1.com
November 10, 2008