For the next installment of the Hugh Hodgson School of Music’s Thursday Scholarship Series, six of the music school’s most talented students will perform solos with the UGA Symphony Orchestra Feb. 1 at 7:30 p.m. in Hodgson Hall.
These soloists are all winners of the annual Concerto Competition, a longstanding tradition of the Hodgson School in which music students from all areas can compete. Students must choose and learn a concerto, then perform it for a panel of faculty judges. This year the Concerto Competition returns as part of the Thursday Scholarship Series.
“What makes [the program] a challenge is you never know what the winning selections are going to be,” said Mark Cedel, director of the Symphony Orchestra and one of the conductors of the Concerto Competition Program. “It can make for some very challenging programming.”
Two of the pieces will be conducted by conducting assistant Jean Gomez.
The winners of the Concerto Competition are Sahada Buckley, violin; Megan Elks, saxophone; Mateus Falkemback, clarinet; Alexandre Tchaykov, piano; Laura Cotney, voice; and Elena Lyalina, piano.
Buckley, who is studying violin performance and music theory, will perform her violin solo during Edouard Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole for violin and orchestra, Op. 21.
A recipient of UGA’s Kenneth Fischer Scholarship and Outstanding Sophomore Award, Elks will perform her solo in Henri Tomasi’s Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra.
Falkemback, a native of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, will play his solo during Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra in A Major, K. 622.
Bela Bartok will play his solo during Piano Concerto No. 2.
Vier letze Lieder (Four Last Songs) by Richard Strauss features Cotney, who has performed in many opera performances throughout the country.
The final piece of the evening will feature Lyalina in Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor, op. 21.
Tickets for the event are $20 for adults and $6 for students and can be found online at pac.uga.edu. For more information, visit music.uga.edu. For more information about concerts and other events at the School of Music, subscribe to the weekly email list. Those unable to make it to the concert can watch the live stream at
music.uga.edu/streaming.