April 29, 2018 – 3:00pm
Macomb Center for the Performing Arts
Program Included:
School for Scandal Overture - Barber
Piano Concerto No. 2 - Rachmaninoff
Symphony No. 4 - Brahms
Guest Conductor Alan MacNair
Alan Mac Nair graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy and then received a Bachelor of Music degree from Michigan State University, where he majored in string education. He then attended Boston University, earning a Master of Music degree in violin performance. He has studied with violinists Joseph Silverstein, Louis Krasner, and Walter Verdehr, and has also studied conducting with Gustav Meier at the University of Michigan. Mr. Mac Nair was the orchestra director at Troy High School for twenty-nine years, and built the orchestra program from 35 students to 220 string players. Under his direction, the Troy High Symphony commissioned several original works, was three times named National Grand Champion, and earned top ratings at other festivals around the United States. Mr. Mac Nair has also been the Music Director and Conductor of the Metropolitan Youth Symphony, which draws students from all over Southeast Michigan, and performs orchestral repertoire of the highest order. Mr. Mac Nair has also been the Concertmaster and Assistant Conductor of the Rochester Symphony, and a substitute violinist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He was the 1993 MSBOA District String Teacher of the Year, and was also named the State String Teacher of the Year by the Michigan String Teachers Association in 1998. In 2004, was named the Troy District High School Teacher of the Year and in 2007, was one of USA Today’s Top Twenty Teachers in America, and remains the only music teacher to win this award. He was recently presented the Elizabeth Green Award as the American String Teachers Association National String Teacher of the year. He is also a founding member of the Michigan State University College of Music Alumni Board, and the found
er and conductor of the Oakland University Chamber Orchestra. He is a frequent adjudicator and clinician at national and regional music education conferences, and conductor of All-State and All-Conference Orchestras around the nation.
Pianist Julia Siciliano
Award-winning concert pianist, Julia Siciliano has been heralded as a musician with “fabulous creative power” by the Bonn General-Anzeiger. Ms. Siciliano has become a well-respected and anticipated rising talent on the world stage, being invited as a solo artist by many prestigious orchestras, and festivals, most recently with the Seven Hills Sinfonietta. A winner of many local and international piano competitions, Julia has won top prizes at the Heida Hermanns International Competition, Iowa Piano Competition, MTNA National Competition, and Beethoven Sonata Competition. Active as a chamber musician, Julia has been invited to perform with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players, and has given numerous recitals with Metropolitan Opera stars Amanda Pabyan, Eric Owens, and Marina Domashenko.
Julia has an active performing career in both solo and chamber music capacities across stages in North America, Central America, and Europe. She has performed multiple times live on Chicago radio station WFMT, Detroit’s historic Scarab Club, Cincinnati Music Hall, the Bulgarian Consulate in New York City, Teatro Falcone Borsellino in Ragusa, Italy, Orpheum Theatre in Sioux City, Iowa, Teatro Nacional of Gautemala, Parvis de l’église Notre-Dame d’Espérance in Cannes, Chateau Haute Sarpe in St. Emilion, and Deutsche Telekom Headquarters in Bonn. Her debut solo album "Dream Catchers”, released in 2016 to great acclaim, was praised by Gramophone Magazine for her "fine technique and natural musicality”. Of particular note was her performance of Debussy's Images Book II with its "masterful delicacy, harmonic motion, and timing". As a freshman at the Eastman School of Music, where she received her bachelor’s degree under the guidance of Nelita True, Julia won the school-wide concerto competition, and performed Beethoven’s Second Concerto. She received a master's degree at the University of Michigan, studying with Logan Skelton.
This activity is supported by the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs
and the National Endowment for the Arts