BCCO perform Sibelius: Violin Concerto, featuring soloist Sarah Hadley Yakir, violin, Sibelius: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Opus 43, Grieg: Last Spring March 19, 2011

Saturday March 19, 7:30 pm
Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims
75 Hicks Street, Brooklyn Heights
Tickets: $15/10

The Brooklyn Conservatory Community Orchestra, Dorothy Savitch music director, presents a concert that brings you into the passionate world of Scandinavia’s two greatest composers. A highlight of the program is the beloved Sibelius violin concerto, with soloist Sarah Hadley Yakir. Also featured are the deeply moving Symphony No. 2 of Sibelius and Grieg’s lyrical “Last Spring.” The concert is Saturday March 19, 2011, 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn Heights. Tickets are $15/10 and can be purchased by going to www.bqcm.org or www.bcco.info and by calling Zerve tickets services at 212. 209. 3370.

The March 19th program features local prodigy Sarah Hadley Yakir. Sarah, who is seventeen years old, started her musical training at the Conservatory and has gone on to achieve some incredible successes in her young and impressive career. Praised by musicians and audiences alike as a “deeply musical, passionate and exceptional talent” Sarah Hadley Yakir, delivers powerful performances with a “beauty of sound, musicality and intonation.” Yakir’s music is “wise beyond her years” says String Magazine.

Sarah began violin studies when she was 4 years old at the Brooklyn Queens Conservatory. Within a year she was invited into New York’s Special Music School and went on to Manhattan School of Music for her pre-college studies. She was accepted into the Cologne, Germany Conservatory when she was 13 as a Special Young Student in the studio of renowned violin pedagogue, Zakhar Bron, whose students include Maxim Vengerov, Vadim Rapim, whom Sarah performed with in chamber music, and Daniel Hope.

Yakir has performed in more than 20 countries and continues a busy music festival schedule. During the 2009-2010 season she completed her first professional tour of six cities in Sweden. She also debuted the Lalo Symphony Espagnole with the Long Island’s Sound Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Maestro Dorothy Savitch.

Yakir made her New York recital debut when she was 8 years old and her orchestral debut at 12 with the Ridgefield Connecticut Symphony Orchestra. At 13 she was the featured child musician in the HBO special The Children of September 11th. The same year she was the hour-long performer and guest of New York Public Televisions, The Arts Show. Her music has been broadcast on Swedish television and radio, and on Polish and Belgium radio.

She has won numerous prizes including the first prize in the New York State MTA String Competition, first prize in the US Eastern Division NMTA String Competition, grand prize in the Ridgefield Symphony Concerto Competition and winner of the Sound Symphony’s Solo Competition.

Sarah also enjoys performing Bluegrass and Country music with the Park Slope group, Men Who Shave. She gives a yearly recital to support travel and research for the Girl’s Robotics Team at MS 51, where she also has given a yearly lecture and performance for the gifted math class demonstrating the connections in Math and Music.
Sarah performs on a 1722 Italian Mezadri violin.

About BCCO
Now in its ninth year, the Brooklyn Conservatory Community Orchestra has generated excitement with its community involvement, bold programming, and passionate music making.
With its collaborations this year the orchestra re-asserts its leadership in the Brooklyn locavore movement! Tonight, Maestro Savitch presents the wunderkind 17 year old violinist Sarah Hadley Yakir (home grown in Park Slope!) to perform the great Sibelius Violin Concerto with the BCCO. The orchestra’s December concert featured Argentian-born soprano Mariana Aslan, who has made her home in Brooklyn and did her graduate work at Brooklyn College. In June, the orchestra continues its on-going collaboration with the Brooklyn Conservatory Chorale to perform Brahms’s heartrending German Requiem.
Perhaps the greatest part of the excitement generated by the BCCO is due to the enthusiastic and dedicated membership of the orchestra. The BCCO’s players are a mixture of musical amateurs and professionals living and working in and near Park Slope. Since 2002 they have expanded from a modest group of thirty to an ensemble of over 75. When not playing as a full orchestra, many of the musicians have organized themselves to play chamber music, have performed at neighborhood schools, local bars and restaurants, churches, and even the local subway stop!

Brooklyn Conservatory of Music is one of the oldest and largest nonprofit community schools of the arts in the nation. The Conservatory serves more than 7,000 people each year, of all ages and backgrounds, through free and subsidized music instruction; education and music therapy programs in over 50 schools and community-based organizations; and free and inexpensive concerts. For a concert calendar and brochure about programs and lessons, please call 718-622-3300 or visit the Conservatory’s website at www.bqcm.org.

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Official Website: http://www.bqcm.org