Philharmonia to Perform with Three Choral Groups

The SUNY Buffalo State Philharmonia Orchestra will present its final concert of the 2013-2014 season, The King Shall Rejoice, on April 29 at 7:30 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center at Rockwell Hall. 

The concert will feature the Buffalo State Chamber Choir, directed by Victoria Furby, the Buffalo State Chorale, directed by John Fleischman, and special guest the Buffalo Master Chorale. Paul Ferington, the Philharmonia music director, will conduct the orchestra in the classical works of Chabrier and Rodgers, followed by the combined choruses singing Handel’s Coronation Anthem No. 1, “Zadok the Priest” and No. 2, “The King Shall Rejoice, concluding with Vaughan-William’s Toward the Unknown Region.

Tickets are $10. All students with ID are admitted for free. To purchase tickets, call (716) 878-3005 or go to music.buffalostate.edu.

Proceeds will go toward the Donald Nelson Cello Commission, which was established to commission an orchestra piece in honor of Buffalo State philanthropist and amateur cellist Donald Nelson who died in 2012. He and his wife, the former Barbara Czurles, were longtime contributors to the Stanley A. Czurles Award for Excellence in Art Education at Buffalo State, named for Nelson’s father-in-law, the late professor emeritus who founded the Art Education Department. The couple also established several department-level funds to help students who have unexpected financial needs or special event opportunities during the school year.

“In the Music Department, we thought it appropriate to commission a work in Don’s honor,” Ferington said. “We chose a musician I have been familiar with since he was a youth — Buffalo native Christopher Rogerson.”

Currently a doctoral fellow at Princeton University, Rogerson has received commissions and performances from the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Buffalo Chamber Music Society, the Grand Rapids Symphony, the New World Symphony, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony, the Brentano Quartet, and the JACK Quartet. His music has been performed in venues including Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, and Merkin Hall. Rogerson also composed an orchestral work, Luminosity, that was commissioned by Buffalo Philharmonic musicians in honor of Ferington’s 25 years conducting the orchestra.

The newly commissioned work will premiere at the Philharmonia’s April 28, 2015 concert.