14-YEAR-OLD CELLIST KIRA WANG WINS PYP’S 2018-19 CONCERTO COMPETITION
Posted on February 13, 2019
PORTLAND, OR - Congratulations to Kira Wang winner of Portland Youth Philharmonic’s 2018-19 Concerto Competition! The 14-year-old cellist will join PYP on stage at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall to perform Ernest Bloch’s Schelomo on Saturday, March 2, 2019, at 7:30 PM. PYP will also live stream a free preview performance from Pacific University’s Taylor-Meade Performing Arts Center on Monday, February 25, at 7:30 PM, on the orchestra’s YouTube channel.
“Schelomo is a Hebraic Rhapsody written by the Swiss-born American composer, Ernst Bloch in 1915,” explains Wang. “It was composed at the end of Bloch’s “Jewish Cycle” and is considered by many to be one of his finest works. Written after the outbreak of World War I, Bloch was pouring out his emotions influenced by the suffering he witnessed. The word Schelomo means Solomon, and thus is King Solomon’s story from the Book of Ecclesiastes. Bloch identified the solo cello as the voice of King Solomon and the orchestra personifying the world surrounding him.”
A 14-year-old freshman at Catlin Gabel, Kira began playing cello at the age of four. She previously won awards in the 2016 Oregon Mozart Players Young Soloist Competition, the 2016 Cascades Young Artists Competition, and the 2015 and 2018 MTNA Junior Strings Competition. In 2018, Kira soloed with the Beaverton Symphony Orchestra and the Jewish Community Orchestra after being selected as a winner in their young artist competitions. She has been a member of the Portland Youth Philharmonic for six years and is currently Co-Principal of the cello section.
In addition to Schelomo, PYP’s upcoming performances will include Johannes Brahms’s powerful Tragic Overture and the orchestra’s second Musical Director Jacob Avshalomov’s exhilarating tone poem, The Taking of T’ung Kuan. The concerts will also include Leonard Bernstein’s Jeremiah Symphony, sung in Hebrew by mezzo-soprano soloist Laura Beckel Thoreson.
Tickets start at just $5 and are on sale now at www.portlandyouthphil.org/concerts.