College Symphony features Concerto winner
 Taishi Nonaka will be the featured soloist during the Fredonia College Symphony's performance of Camille Saint-Saens' "Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in A minor." |
This concert features one of this year’s School of Music Concerto Competition Winners, Taishi Nonaka, cellist, performing Camille Saint-Saens’ “Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in A minor.”
Also on the program: “Overture to Der Freischutz” by Carl Maria von Weber; “Suite from Swan Lake” by Tchaikovsky; and Walter Piston’s Sutie from “The Incredible Flutist.”
Taishi Nonaka was born in Nagaoka, Niigata prefecture, Japan. He grew up in Funabashi, Chiba pref., Japan, which is in the metropolitan area of Tokyo, and started playing the piano when he was four. At the age of nine, Mr. Nonaka started playing the cello with an elementary school orchestra. Mr. Nonaka said that the Chiba Prefecture Youth Symphony Orchestra “was the most inspiring musical experience of my youth period.”
Other ensembles that Mr. Nonaka has performed with include the West Virginia Youth Symphony and Chamber Orchestra, the University of Rochester Symphony Orchestra, the SUNY Fredonia College Symphony and Chamber Orchestra. Some of Mr. Nonaka’s primary teachers include Dr. Yamazaki, Yoshihiro (a former principal of New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra), Dr. Fujimori, Ryoichi (a principal of NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo), Dr. Hatano, Seiji (a former principal of Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra) and Dr. Natasha Farny. Mr. Nonaka plans on teaching music and English upon graduation.
Dr. David Rudge, Director of Orchestral Activities, conductor of Opera at the State University of New York at Fredonia, and Music Director of the Orchard Park Symphony Orchestra, has conducted orchestras on five continents to rave reviews. As Director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Guatemala he was credited with the dramatic rebirth of that orchestra. Described as "dynamic" and "electric," Guatemala's Prensa Libre wrote "it has been many years since we have heard a symphony orchestra play with such inspiration."
Dr. Rudge founded the Eastminster Chamber Orchestra, and was Assistant Conductor of the University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra, the Columbia Lyric Opera and Ballet, and the South Carolina Philharmonic. During that time he was noted for his "Bernstein-like intensity" The State, Columbia, SC. He was chosen several times to prepare the Beethoven Chamber Orchestra for the International Workshop for Conductors in ZlÌn, Czech Republic. He has guest conducted the West Bohemian Symphony Orchestra in Mariánské Lázne, CR, and, as a two time winner of the International Opera Conductors' Competition, he was invited to conduct a complete production of Rigoletto at the Silesian State Opera in the Czech Republic, and to lead the Vratza Philharmonic in Bulgaria. In 1996, as an Artistic Ambassador for the State Department, he spent two months in Damascus, Syria conducting the National Symphony and Chamber Orchestra. He has conducted the Opera and Orchestra at the Rome Festival, Italy, and has guest conducted the Dialecto Urbano Chorus, Caracas, Venezuela, the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, with Jean-Luc Ponty as soloist, the Western New York Chamber Orchestra, and the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra. Holding degrees from the Hartt School of Music, the University of Houston, and the University of South Carolina, Dr. Rudge has also studied conducting at the Dartington School, England, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Pierre Monteux School, the Aspen Music Festival, the National Conservatory of Romania, and with such notables as Charles Bruck, Max Rudolf, Gunther Schuller, and Maurice Abravanel. Violin study was with Yumi Ninomiya, Jascha Brodsky, Renato Bonacini, and Fredell Lack.
At SUNY-Fredonia he teaches one of the country's few non-jazz free Improvisation courses.
Dr. Rudge has played as both a violinist and violist with the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, the Tulsa Philharmonic, the Orquesta Sinfónica Venezuela, the Charleston Symphony, the Portland Symphony, and the Houston Grand Opera. He was the first violinist of the Andrea String Quartet, and was invited to perform with the Portland String Quartet in their 25th Anniversary concert.
