Wen Qiang, violin soloist
Scott Jackson Wiley, Music Director and Conductor

It’s Election Week! To celebrate our most important and defining national tradition, the South Shore Symphony presents a program of classic scores by two of our country’s most important composers, Samuel Barber and Aaron Copland. ViolinistWen Qiang of the Metropolitan Opera is soloist in Barber’s eloquent Concerto for Violin. Rounding out this program of Americana are Barber’s bracing Essay N.1 for Orchestra and the Copland’s western inspired ballet score, Billy the Kid.

Samuel Barber – Essay n. 1 for Orchestra
Samuel Barber – Concerto for Violin
Aaron Copland – Lincoln Portrait – Special Guest Narrator TBA
Aaron Copland – Billy the Kid Suite

Wen Qian performs the Barber Violin Concerto. A native of Beijing, China, Ms. Wen Qian came to the US in 1987 to pursue a musical career. As a soloist, Ms. Qian was hailed by China Daily as “one of China’s most promising young violinists” a er her China concert tour in 1994. She was praised as “a rare thrill” and “enthralling” by the Strad magazine for her 2004 solo recital at the Carnegie Weill Recital Hall. As a chamber musician, she has performed
in music festivals such as the Marlboro and Sarasota festivals, and the Young Concert Artist Series presented
by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. As an educator, the demand for Ms. Qian’s teaching has included master classes and coachings at the New World Symphony in Miami, New York Youth Symphony and conservatories throughout China. She is currently a faculty member at the Mannes College of Music.

Ms. Qian joined the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 1997. She served as Acting Assistant Concertmaster during the 2001-2002 season.

Steve Guttenberg, grew up in North Massapequa and graduated from Plainedge High School. He comes to the Madison eatre to narrate the stirring work of Aaron Copland, “A Lincon Portrait”. Although Steve Guttenberg is rmly established as the star not only of hit motion pic- tures but of hit motion picture franchises, his roots are in the theater. As a result, he has moved e ortlessly between comedy and drama. In two decades of stardom in both critical and box-o ce hits, Guttenberg has been the above- the-title star of six lms that earned over $100,000,000 in the United States, a feat accomplished by relatively few superstars. He has also starred in four lm franchises, appearing in such sequeled smash hits as Cocoon (1985),

3 Men and a Baby (1987), Police Academy (1984), and Short Circuit (1986), taking his lms’ box-o ce grosses into the billions. e comic timing and charm with which he illuminated those lms and the dramatic invention which he displayed in such other major successes as Diner (1982), e Bedroom Window (1987), e Boys from Bra- zil (1978), and a string of historic television lms all derive from his rm theater training.