Gettysburg Chamber Orchestra Performs Handel, Mozart and Hayden

(5/1) Music, Gettysburg! is proud to present the Gettysburg Chamber Orchestra (GCO) in concert Sunday, May 10, at 4:00 pm in the Seminary Chapel featuring Mozart, Hayden, and Handel and artists Margaret Folkemer and Colleen Hartung.

With this concert, free and open to the public, the GCO continues its tradition of highlighting local musicians as soloists with the orchestra featuring soprano Margaret Folkemer. She will sing two arias by Handel, one from his famous opera, Guilio Caesare, and the other from Il Pastor Fido, and two concert arias by Mozart, both written for his sister-in-law and former sweetheart, Aloysia Weber. Other works on the program include Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622, his last concerto to be written and completed just weeks before his death, and the famous London Symphony (Symphony No. 104) by Franz Joseph Haydn. Performing the Mozart Clarinet Concerto is Colleen Hartung.

Folkemer was born and raised in Gettysburg and is the daughter of Stephen and Beth Folkemer, both well known to audiences in the Gettysburg area. Margaret is a graduate of the Schulich School of Music of McGill University, Montreal, and continues her musical studies with Juilianne Bard, a noted vocal pedagogue in Philadelphia. She has specialized in the study and performance of early music and has participated in the Amherst Early Music Festival for a number of years where on one occasion she worked with the Internationally known ensemble "Anonymous Four" in the performance of works from the famed Montpellier Codex. The Queens College Baroque Opera Workshop also provided opportunities for solo work in an opera by Cavalli, an Italian composer of the 17th century. Margaret has performed on many occasions for Music, Gettysburg! but perhaps most will know her from her singing on the New Year’s Eve Celebration in the town square of Gettysburg.

The featured clarinetist for the concerto will be Dr. Colleen Hartung, a former member of the faculty at the Sunderman Conservatory of Music at Gettysburg College and a founding member of the Sunderman Woodwind Quintet. She received both her BA and MM from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and her DMA from Michigan State University where she studied clarinet with Else Ledewig-Verdehr, a Distinguished Professor at that University and internationally renowned as both a performer and pedagoge. Colleen has performed with the Jackson Symphony, the Roanoke Symphony, Opera Roanoke, the Ashlawn Opera Festival, and the Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestra. Currently she is on the faculty of Bucknell University and Susquehanna University.

The orchestra, currently in its 18th year of music making, has recently launched a fundraising drive to build an Endowment Fund to ensure future concerts. Its Directors, Norman and Carolyn Nunamaker, have been donating their time and energy "….as a gift to the community," and want to see this professional orchestra continue to exist long after they step down from all of the responsibilities of operating the ensemble. The goal of this drive is to raise $100,000, and they are proud to say that in less than one year they have raised approximately $60,000. And, an anonymous donor has offered to match, dollar for dollar, up to $15,000 any gifts received during the next year. You may contact the orchestra at the number below to make a contribution or pledge to the campaign.

This concert is supported in part by the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts, an official arm of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and is administered in this region by the Cultural Alliance of York, PA. The GCO is one of a handful of musical organizations in the Commonwealth to receive grants from this program and is proud to be in this elite group.

Enjoy this orchestral musical treat at the Sunday afternoon concert, which is free and open to the public. The Seminary Chapel is located at 147 Seminary Ridge in Gettysburg. For more information about this and other concerts in the Music, Gettysburg! schedule, please call 717-338-3000 ext 2197 or visit the Music, Gettysburg! web site: www.musicgettysburg.org or writing info@musicgettysburg.org . For further information about the Gettysburg Chamber Orchestra or to participate in its campaign, please call 717-334-5508.