16-Year-Old’s Concerto To Be Performed Today With East Texas Symphony Orchestra
Staff Photo By Tom Turner
Per Brevig (left), music director and conductor of the East Texas Symphony Orchestra, laughs at a joke made by Jay Greenberg (right) during East Texas Symphony Orchestra Noon Notes at Green Acres Baptist Church on Friday. Greenberg, who is a 16-year-old composer, was commissioned by the Women’s Symphony League of Tyler to write a concerto.
By LAUREN KEATON
Staff Writer
Most 16-year-old boys are obsessed with cars or sports or girls. Jay Greenberg, however, isn’t the typical teenage boy.
Staff Writer
Most 16-year-old boys are obsessed with cars or sports or girls. Jay Greenberg, however, isn’t the typical teenage boy.
His world is quite notable, to be sure, and today the musical prodigy will unveil a world premier performance, with the East Texas Symphony Orchestra, of the “Triple Concerto for Violin, Cello and Piano,’’ which will also feature the Eroica Trio.
Performance time is 7:30 p.m. in the Cowan Center on the campus of the University of Texas at Tyler. ETSO Music Director/Conductor Per Brevig will be at the podium.
The young composer spoke to the group during Noon Notes, the regular feature of the ETSO, scheduled the Friday prior to the weekend performance.
“I’ve known music as long as I can remember,’’ Greenberg said, adding he begged his parents for cello lessons when he was 3.
“Admitting defeat, my parents arranged for cello lessons,’’ he said. “I essentially used the cello to learn how to read music. I only played the cello for a couple of years and then I moved on to piano, violin and other things.’’
Staff Photos By Tom Turner
Left, Erika Nickrenz pianist for the Eroica Trio, laughs during Noon Notes. Middle, Sara Sant’Ambrogio, a cellist for the Eroica Trio. Right, Susie Park, a violinist for the Eroica Trio.
Commissioned by the ETSO Association with funding from the Women’s Symphony League of Tyler, Greenberg’s Concerto matches his earlier successes of five, full-scale symphonies, solo piano pieces and sonatas.
Cited as the youngest composer ever signed to exclusive contracts with IMG Artists and Sony Classical, his first CD records his Symphony No. 5 performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.
At age 10, Greenberg enrolled as a scholarship student in both the college and pre-college divisions of New York’s Julliard School of Music. He taught himself how to play piano, without formal lessons until he was 11 or 12.
Writing his debut concerto was “fairly simple” he said, adding his experience playing all three instruments aided his efforts.
Triple Threat
One of the first all-female chamber ensembles to scale the heights in its field, the Eroica Trio offers a “unique combination of technical flair, raw, driven energy and high spirits,” according to ETSO officials.
All top-ranked, award-winning soloists, Eroica Trio members are pianist Erika Nickrenz, violinist Susie Park and cellist Sara Sant’Ambrogio.
Childhood friends from their earliest instrumental studies, the three often had music lessons from one another’s parents who were also recognized musicians.
They also spoke Friday at the Noon Notes event, returning to Tyler for their second performance with ETSO and Brevig.
“The Eroica Trio played three years ago (in Tyler). It was such a unique musical experience for both the Trio and myself that we wanted to collaborate further, and I wanted to have them back here,” Brevig recalled. “We decided to commission the best composer we could find to write a concerto for piano, violin and cello.”
Their search would end quickly, when a coincidence helped things fall into place.
“I had been following Jay for a while,” Ms. Sant’Ambrogio said. “A student of mine went to Julliard with him. So I started following his music.”
“I had been following Jay for a while,” Ms. Sant’Ambrogio said. “A student of mine went to Julliard with him. So I started following his music.”
When Ms. Sant’Ambrogio discovered Greenberg had been newly signed with IMG Artists, which happened to be the Trios’ management, she knew she had to act fast.
“I called Per and said ‘I found him,’” she said.
“I called Per and said ‘I found him,’” she said.
Within a few weeks, they presented the idea to WSL, needing money to commission the concerto.
“Women’s Symphony League came through” in record time, Brevig said. “That was a major, major contribution from WSL. We have a new (concerto) that is going to premiere in Tyler, Texas, and played around the world. Yours truly is the biggest fan of WSL.”
Season-Closing events
Other selections for ETSO’s fifth Masterworks concert include Aaron Copland’s “An Outdoor Overture” and the Brahms Symphony No. 1 in C minor. Partial underwriting for the concert is through Rose K. Brown, CFP, and Laura Hankla Johnston, AAMS, of Wachovia.
Special pre-concert music in the Cowan Center’s White Lobby will be presented by the Kirshbaum Strings, students at St. Gregory Catholic Elementary School under direction of Melissa Baxley.
An informal, open rehearsal is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. today at the Cowan Center and is free and open without charge to senior citizens and young families introducing their children to symphonic music.
The evening educational introduction to the concert program will be presented by Jim Yancy at 6:45 p.m. in the Cowan Center Opera Class Room. Tickets may be purchased by phone at 903-526-3876, at the ETSO offices at 522 South Broadway, Suite 101, or at the Cowan Lobby before the concert.
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