University Symphony Orchestra Performance

The University Symphony Orchestra is pleased to share their second performance of the 2017-2018 concert season with Dr. Eric Ohlsson, the Charles O. DeLaney Professor of Oboe at Florida State University, on Saturday, October 14, 2017 at 7:30 PM in Ruby Diamond Concert Hall. Ohlsson will join the Orchestra for Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s Oboe Concerto. Additional works for the evening include Beethoven’s Egmont Overture and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 1.

This performance is part of the University Musical Associates Concert Season. Tickets for this event are $10 for adults, $7 for seniors and non-FSU students; FSU students are free with ID. Tickets may be purchased at the College of Music Box Office: 645-7949.

ABOUT THE FEATURED ARTISTS

Eric Ohlsson, the Charles O. DeLaney Professor of Oboe, came to Florida State University in 1986 from the University of South Carolina, where he had been professor of oboe since 1980. While completing the D.M.A. degree at The Ohio State University, where he was twice a concerto competition winner, he was the co-principal oboist of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra.

Positions as principal oboist of the South Carolina Philharmonic and Chamber Orchestra and the Augusta Symphony followed, and from 1986 to 1996 he was principal oboist of the Naples Philharmonic. He has served as a recitalist and chamber musician in the U.S., Europe, and Canada, with major performances at conventions of the International Double Reed Society, the Spoleto Festival and at Carnegie Recital Hall. He was the host of the 25th anniversary conference of the International Double Reed Society in 1996.

In addition to his teaching duties at FSU, Professor Ohlsson is principal oboist of the Tallahassee Symphony and is a member of the Opperman Reed Trio. During the summers Dr. Ohlsson is on the faculty of the Brevard Music Center, where he is principal oboist of the Brevard Music Center Orchestra.

Ellen Taaffe Zwillich, Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor, is widely considered to be one of America’s leading composers. She studied at the Florida State University and the Juilliard School, where her major teachers were Roger Sessions and Elliott Carter. She also studied violin with Richard Burgin and Ivan Galamian and was a member of the American Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski.

Zwilich is the recipient of numerous prizes and honors, including the 1983 Pulitzer Prize in Music (the first woman ever to receive this coveted award). She was elected to the Florida Artists Hall of Fame and the American Academy of Arts and Letters and, in 1995, was named to the first Composer’s Chair in the history of Carnegie Hall. Musical America designated her the 1999 Composer of the Year. A prolific composer in all media except opera, Zwilich has produced four symphonies and other orchestral essays, numerous concertos for a wide variety of solo instruments, and a sizable canon of chamber and recital pieces. Her works are commissioned and played regularly by the leading orchestras and ensembles throughout the world.

Many of her works have been issued on recordings, and Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (8th edition) states: “There are not many composers in the modern world who possess the lucky combination of writing music of substance and at the same time exercising an immediate appeal to mixed audiences. Zwilich offers this happy combination of purely technical excellence and a distinct power of communication.”