WVU Syphony Orchestra
with musicians from
West Virginia Symphony Orchestra and Wheeling Symphony Orchestra
October 10, 2024
7:30 p.m.
Canady Creative Arts Center Lyell B. Clay Concert Theatre
Jump to:
This concert is part of the Violins of Hope at WVU exhibition and event series.
Dr. Rotem Weinberg,
conductor
Director of Orchestra Activities
Maurice Cohn,
conductor
Music Director, West Virginia Symphony
Mary Grace Johnson,
violin
Assistant Professor of Violin
Alan Cline,
baritone
Adjunct Instructor of Voice
Jerry McGonigle,
narrator
Professor of Acting and Directing
Jesse Wright,
interviewer
Teaching Assistant Professor of Journalism
Program
Overture to
Egmont
L.v. Beethoven (1770-1872)
Roten Weinberg, conductor
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in E minor
F. Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Mary Grace Johnson,
violin
Maurice Cohn,
conductor
- Allegro molto appassionato
- Andante
- Allegretto non troppo – Allegro molto vivace
Lo Yisa Goy (“Nation shall not lift sword against nation”)
S. Garrop (b. 1969)
Maurice Cohn, conductor
Songs of a Wayfarer
G. Mahler (1860-1911)
Alan Cline,
baritone
Rotem Weinberg,
conductor
- "Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht" ("When my darling has her wedding-day")
- "Ging heut' Morgen über's Feld" ("I walked across the fields this morning")
Serenade to Music
R. Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Rotem Weinberg, conductor
Performers' Bios
Rotem Weinberg
Israeli-American conductor Rotem Weinberg is known for his profound musicality, creative programming, and polished performances. He is a cross-genre musician, at home in classical, operatic, and pops repertoires alike. He serves as Director of Orchestral Activities at West Virginia University, where he conducts the WVU Symphony Orchestra and teaches graduate and undergraduate conducting. Weinberg earned a BM in orchestral conducting from the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music of Tel-Aviv University, where he studied with Prof. Yoav Talmi, Yi-an Xu, and Ronen Borshevsky. His graduate studies took him to The University of Michigan, where he earned both MM and DMA degrees in orchestral conducting, studying with the renowned conductor and pedagogue Kenneth Kiesler.
Weinberg's previous titles include positions such as Director of Orchestras at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, Music Director of Spectrum Orchestra in Birmingham, Michigan, Associate Conductor of the Michigan Youth Symphony Orchestra, Cover Conductor for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Music Director of the University of Michigan Campus Orchestras, and Music Director of the Michigan Pops Orchestra.
Maurice Cohn
Born and raised in Galesburg, Illinois, Maurice Cohn became Music Director of the West Virginia Symphony in the 2023-2024 season. Musical highlights of his first year in Charleston include the Symphony’s November 2023 collaboration with Mountain Stage, conducting the West Virginia Symphony premieres of music by Clara Schumann and Jessica Hunt, and expanding the orchestra through the hiring of sixteen new musicians.
Prior to moving to Charleston, Maurice served as Assistant Conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra for three seasons. He made his subscription debut in 2023, stepping in for Music Director Fabio Luisi, and conducted the orchestra in numerous concerts at Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, at venues throughout North Texas, and as part of the DSO’s Bravo! Vail summer residency in Colorado. Concurrent with his time in Dallas, Maurice was appointed Assistant Conductor of the Aspen Music Festival for the 2022 and 2023 seasons.
When not in Charleston, Maurice conducts performances throughout the United States and abroad. Recent and upcoming guest conducting engagements include the Cincinnati Symphony, Utah Symphony, Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic, ensembleNEWSRQ, Omaha Symphony, Amarillo Symphony, and the Oberlin Conservatory Orchestra. He also serves as Artistic Partner and Conductor of Camerata Notturna, a chamber orchestra based in New York City.
Maurice spent two summers as a conducting fellow at the Aspen Music Festival, where he received the Robert J. Harth Conducting Prize and the Aspen Conducting Prize. He received an M.M. in conducting from the Eastman School of Music and is a three-time recipient of the Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award. He holds a B.M. in cello performance from Oberlin Conservatory and a B.A. from Oberlin College, where he studied history and mathematics.
Mary Grace Johnson
Award-winning violinist Mary Grace Johnson has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe and North America and is the newly-appointed concertmaster of the West Virginia Symphony. She has been a prize winner and finalist at numerous competitions including the Bartok World String Quartet Competition in Budapest, Hungary and MTNA’s National Young Artist Competition and has been featured on NPR's Performance Today.
Johnson is a co-leader and program curator for Kinetic Ensemble, Houston's premiere conductorless string orchestra. Her recordings with Kinetic have been released to critical acclaim on Orchid Classics and Bright Shiny Things. She has performed with some of the world's leading chamber musicians, including Steven Doane, Sarah Rothenberg, Lesley Hatfield, Scott Yoo and Sharan Leventhal, and has studied chamber music with the American, Blair, Escher, Juilliard, and Pacifica quartets. She has appeared as soloist with several orchestras including the Nashville Symphony and the Vanderbilt University Orchestra, and was recently selected to perform for the Duke of Kent in Cornwall, U.K. as part of the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove.
A firm believer in advocacy through music, Johnson aims to center underrepresented voices, especially women, in her recital programming. She has premiered works by over a dozen composers including Anthony Brandt, Amy Nam, Theo Chandler, and Nicky Sohn. In 2023, she co-commissioned and premiered Sohn’s violin concerto, “Home,” with Kinetic Ensemble to a sold-out audience on a program celebrating female expression and addiction recovery.
A devoted educator, Johnson is the Assistant Professor of Violin at West Virginia University. She previously taught at Lone Star College-University Park and has worked with the chamber music programs at Rice University, Vanderbilt Blair Pre-College, and the Juilliard School. During the summers she has taught at the Kneisel Hall Maine Students Program, AFA Summer Music Festival, and Interlochen Arts Camp. A proud Suzuki instructor, she received her Suzuki Training at Vanderbilt University with Carol Smith.
Johnson completed her studies at Vanderbilt University, the Juilliard School, and Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. Her major instructors include Paul Kantor, Cornelia Heard, Christian Teal, and Laurie Smukler. In addition to the violin, she studied viola with Kathryn Plummer and baroque violin with Allison Nyquist. When not performing, she enjoys camping, backpacking, and experimenting with new recipes with her husband, clarinetist Keeheon Nam.
Alan Cline
Hailed as having a “Stern, yet warmly lyrical sound,” Alan Cline is a dramatic baritone who currently serves as Adjunct Professor of Voice at West Virginia University. He completed his Doctor of Musical Arts degree earlier this year at WVU, and also holds a Master’s degree in performance from the Eastman School of Music and a bachelor’s degree in performance from West Liberty University. He is an in demand performer with recent operatic credits including the title roles in Gianni Schicchi and Rigoletto, The Father in Hansel and Gretel, Rodrigo in Don Carlo, and Tonio in Pagliacci. Dr. Cline is also a frequent competitor, earning third place nationally in the National Association of Teachers of Singing Artist Awards in 2022, being a national semi-finalist at the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and a recent winner of the Pittsburgh Concert Society Major Awards with his duet partner, Lucas Barkley. When not teaching or traveling, he resides in Wheeling with his wife Lara and their daughter Lucy.
Jerry McGonigle
Jerry McGonigle came to WVU in 1990 from Orange County, CA, where he designed, founded and ran The Professional Actors Conservatory at Rancho Santiago College. Jerry has both acted and directed nationally and internationally at such theatres as E.T.A. Hoffman Theatre (Bamberg, Germany), M.T. Pockets Theatre Co./100 Monkeys (Edinburgh Fringe Festival), West Virginia Public Theatre, Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Pac Theatre Co., Missouri Repertory Theatre, American Conservatory Theatre, and the Missouri Shakespeare Festival. Jerry was awarded the Mabel DeVries Tanner Endowed Professorship in 2003 and was reappointed to this position in 2006. He has twice received the Outstanding Research and Creative Activity award in the WVU School of Theatre and Dance.
Over the past twelve years, Jerry has acted or directed in seven independent films. He recently directed two films entitled The Man Who Stole the Moon, and Welcome to the Party. In 1998, Jerry directed Getting Over Arnette, a short film for public television which won a first place award in the category of Performance at the National Educational Television awards. He holds a BA from the University of Dallas and an MFA in acting from The American Conservatory Theatre of San Francisco. McGonigle’s WVU directing credits include Killing Game, Hot L Baltimore, Cloud Nine, Three Sisters, King Lear, A Lie of the Mind, All My Sons, Arcadia, Macbeth, Dangerous Corner, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Ghost Sonata, The Time of your Life, Oleanna, The Winter’s Tale, and Measure For Measure.
Jesse Wright
Jesse Wright joined West Virginia University in February 2020 as a Mellon Foundation funded practitioner in residence. Wright comes to WVU from West Virginia Public Broadcasting, where he led the newsroom as news director, and executive producer of Inside Appalachia and the Legislature Today. He also helped start several internal and external editorial collaborations and projects, including Appalachia Health News and the Ohio Valley ReSource.
He is working with Professor Joel Beeson to develop a trans-disciplinary minor in community documentary storytelling, and with Professor Dana Coester to better integrate 100 Days in Appalachia, a digital publication housed at the WVU Media Innovation Center, into the Reed College of Media’s curriculum. Wright also teaches beat reporting at the Reed College of Media and serves as a contributing editor with 100 Days in Appalachia, focusing on visual and audio content.
Wright was born in Swaziland and grew up in South Africa. During his high school years, he witnessed the end of Apartheid and South Africa's transition to democracy. He moved to West Virginia in 1996 to attend West Virginia University, where he earned a bachelor's in journalism and met his wife, a West Virginia native, in the process. Wright began his journalism career at the Dominion Post newspaper in Morgantown, where he served as copy desk chief and worked on almost every aspect of the newspaper's editorial production.
Orchestra Musicians
Violin
- Samuel Rolim, concertmaster
- Ryu Wada, principal second violin
- Jessica Arnold
- Larryn Betts
- Kerry Broker *
- Trixie Calissie
- Brian Curtin ^
- Irene Guerra Rudas
- Yaniv Gutman ^
- Sean Elliott *
- Brooke Holden
- Ana Lasker
- Olivia Moore
- Nessan Mungovan
- Caleb Newell
- Richard Palermo *
- Julianna Perkowski
- Shairah Sanchez
- Samantha Wolf
Viola
- Noah Bowles, principal
- Leah Degarmo
- Louise Farbman *
- Samantha Lasure
- Rebecca Rothermel ^
- Madison Shaffer
- Madison Strempek
- Philip Sweet
Cello
- Ivan Law, principal
- Aria Bousquet
- Tristan Conrad
- Kevin Hugas
- Avery Knutsen
- Aedan Maloney
- Gabrielle Palfi ^
- Susanna Reilly *
Bass
- Audrey Howe, principal
- Justin Bendel *
- Jacob Burch
- Thomas White ^
Flute
- Greta Hulterstrum
- Hanna Noh
- Jackson Thee
Oboe
- Chase Kennedy
- Georgia Palmatory
Clarinet
- Natalie Alfera
- Gabriel Flanegan
- Sydni Miller
Bassoon
- Madi Cardenas
- Adam Ferguson
Horn
- Adam Hatcher
- Kyle Jones
- Jacob Schear
- Gavin Wheeler
Trumpet
- Mark Humbert
- Garret Materne
Trombone
- Drew Herter
- Ryan Hogue
- Evan Klimowich
Timpani and Percussion
- Joan Adams
- Jonah Eggert
- José Gonzales
- Michael Mullican
Harp
- Brittany Blair
- Victoria Tobery
- Hadessah VanGilder
* Wheeling Symphony musician
^ West Virginia Symphony musician
Thank You
We thank Jamie Whoolery, Assistant Dean of Production, Presentation, Operations, and Cultural Engagement, Peter McCumber, Jason Zeh, Martin Chittum, and Mike McGinley of CCAM Production, Mark Benincosa, Recording Technician, for assistance with this concert, along with the College of Creative Arts and Media, Keith Jackson, Dean, the School of Music, Kelly Burke, Director, and West Virginia University for support of this evening’s event.