West Virginia State University Hosts Free Symphony Orchestra Concert Saturday

6/20/2013

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Contact: Jack Bailey
(304) 766-4109
Jbaile19@wvstateu.edu
 
 
INSTITUTE, W.Va. – West Virginia State University (WVSU) will offer the local community a taste of global culture by presenting a free symphony orchestra concert Saturday, June 22, at 12:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Davis Fine Arts Building.

The concert will be the culmination of a week-long instructional program sponsored by the International Academy of Advanced Conducting (IAAC) after Ilia Musin program. The program is hosted twice a year, once in Institute and once in St. Petersburg, Russia.
           
“Ilia Musin dedicated over 70 years of his life to teaching an advanced orchestral conducting technique to his students at the Leningrad State Conservatory in Russia,” said WVSU Department of Music Chairman Scott Woodard. “His methods are widely respected all over the world and the IAAC aims to keep his life’s work alive and well.”
           
Musical conducting students from all over the country arrived in Institute on Monday to study for the week under IAAC founder Dr. Oleg Proskurnya and Woodard.
           
Participants, including WVSU seniors Joshua Cole, a music education/music performance double-major and Kelsey Crisco, a music performance major, will receive individual coaching and instruction at the podium, partake in several intensive workshops, and practice daily with a 40-piece orchestra comprised of members of  the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra and the Huntington Symphony Orchestra.
           
The IAAC after Ilia Musin was founded by Proskurnya in 1997, two years before Musin’s death in 1999. Proskurnya studied under Musin for five years and assisted him in an   International Conducting Workshop in 1998.
           
Musin was a Russian conductor who taught a comprehensive system enabling students to communicate with the orchestra through the hands, requiring minimal verbal instruction. He was the first to develop such a detailed system of gestures for musical conducting.
           
For more information contact Scott Woodard at (304) 766-3190 or   swoodar1@wvstateu.edu, or visit www.musinconducting.org.
           
West Virginia State University is a public, land grant, historically black university, which has evolved into a fully accessible, racially integrated, and multi-generational institution, located in Institute, W.Va. As a “living laboratory of human relations,” the university is a community of students, staff, and faculty committed to academic growth, service, and preservation of the racial and cultural diversity of the institution. Its mission is to meet the higher education and economic development needs of the state and region through innovative teaching and applied research.