Youngstown New Music Guild and YSU New Music Society to host pianist Avguste Antonov

Bulgarian-born pianist Avguste Antonov, now based in Dallas, who specializes in the performance of works by living composers, will present a concert at Youngstown’s Holy Apostles Church (formerly Ss. Peter and Paul) on Sunday, August 31 at 4:00 pm, and a noonday recital at the Youngstown’s Butler Institute of American Art (Beecher Court) on Wednesday, September 3.

Repertory from Antonov’s new CD on the New York Hartshorn Recordings label will be featured on his August 31 recital. Youngstown composers account for three-fifths of that project, including professor emeritus Robert Rollin’s Blue Fantasy, Richard Zacharias’s Romance for piano solo, and Samantha Hogan’s Cumulus Humilis for piano solo. Other composers are Matthew Saunders and Sy Brandon.

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Review: Dana New Music Festival XIX: Concert 4 at St. Columba Cathedral, Youngstown (May 1)

by Daniel Hathaway

Youngstown State University’s Dana New Music Festival XIX held its ultimate concert at St. Columba Cathedral on Wednesday evening, May 1, featuring new works by faculty, student and community composers, a couple of not-so-new-music selections by French and American composers and several Polish pieces performed by four members of the Sobieski family (left) who had also been featured at a noontime concert at the Butler Institute of American Art. The Festival Orchestra was conducted by composition professor Robert Rollin and other performances featured members of the Dana Composers Ensemble (directed by Gwneth Rollin). The two-hour concert, played without intermission, offered an intriguing buffet of musical styles.

Youngstown composer Richard Zacharias’s All Right, Time to Go, ironically opened the evening with intriguing back-and-forth monologues between violin (Natalie Sahyoun) and piano (Alison Morris) who only later joined in dialogue. Both in the opening work and in Zacharias’s Duo Two (a first performance), the pairs of instrumentalists seemed to be trying to start up a conversation but communication proved difficult. Duo Two was distinguished by strong horn playing from Stephen Klein, with the fine assistance of pianist Maria Fesz.