Longy Chamber Orchestra
The Longy Chamber Orchestra (LCO) is the primary ensemble for orchestral training and repertoire at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Longy Chamber Orchestra and the Longy Chamber Winds (made up of LCO wind instrument players), perform an annual series of orchestral concerts in Longy’s Edward M. Pickman Hall and other venues in Cambridge and Boston. The largest performing ensemble at Longy, the LCO’s season also includes collaborations with the Longy Opera Department.
The Longy Chamber Orchestra was created right after the famous Boston area Blizzard of 1978. Violinist and Longy faculty member Sophie Vilker, founded the ensemble and was the first music director. The first auditions were scheduled on February 5, 1978, when the blizzard started, and because of the storm, no one showed up! So, the orchestra started very modestly with about 12 people and only included string players. Eventually Vilker started adding wind instruments. At that time, the conservatory part of the Longy School was virtually nonexistent, so the group mostly consisted of adult amateur players from the community. Vilker was in charge of the orchestra for about three to four years and then remained a guest conductor, when Endel Kalam, the orchestra’s next music director, took over.
The Longy Chamber Orchestra is currently under the direction of Maestro Julian Pellicano. Pellicano was appointed in 2009 to the faculty of the Conservatory at the Longy School of Music where he serves as Artistic Director of Large Ensembles and Principal Conductor of the Longy Chamber Orchestra. Having completed a fellowship in conducting at the Yale School of Music, Mr. Pellicano was assistant conductor of the Yale Philharmonia and the New Music New Haven concert series under conductor Shinik Hahm. He was first appointed assistant conductor at Yale during the 2005-06 season while pursuing a master’s degree in percussion. Since then Mr. Pellicano has led numerous concerts at Yale conducting the Philharmonia, and performing faculty, student and guest composers’ works. One of these concerts included the music of John Adams with Mr. Adams presiding and a recording of Ingram Marshall’s Peaceable Kingdom for New World Records. On faculty at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Mr. Pellicano has been conductor of the Norfolk New Music Ensemble since 2008, and he has worked with New Paths, New Music, a New York based organization promoting cultural exchange through contemporary music. Their first tour resulted in five concerts in Turkey featuring music by American composers (Steven Stucky, Pieter Snapper, Michael Ellison, Spencer Topel, Eugene Birman) and traditional Turkish music with American and European musicians collaborating with Turkish classical musicians. More recently, Mr. Pellicano served as assistant conductor of the New Britain Symphony under maestro Jesse Levine, appeared as guest conductor with the Tuscaloosa Symphony and was one of 13 conductors selected by Kurt Masur to participate in the 2009 Kurt Masur Conducting Seminar in New York City.
In 2006, Mr. Pellicano was invited by Shinik Hahm to serve as guest assistant conductor of the Daejeon Philharmonic orchestra in South Korea. He was also invited by composers Steve Mackey and Sarah Kirkland Snider to lead a concert of their music at Princeton University. In 2007 Mr. Pellicano conducted the American premiere of Hans Werner Henze’s Drei Geistliche Konzerte, and he was chosen as one of the conductors in a special exchange project between composers from the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Yale School of Music. Mr. Pellicano also received a fellowship from the Centre Acanthes in Paris to undertake an intensive course of study with conductor/composer Peter Eötvös and conductor Zsolt Nagy in collaboration with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg.
Julian Pellicano holds a BA in philosophy from Johns Hopkins University, degrees in percussion from the Peabody Conservatory and the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Sweden, where his principal teachers were Jonathan Haas and Anders Loguin respectively, and an MM in percussion from the Yale School of Music where he studied with Robert van Sice. As a percussionist he has performed in the United States and Europe. He has studied at the Aspen Music Festival, was a soloist in the 2004 Young Nordic Music Festival and was featured in 2005 at Holland’s Nationaal Jeugd Orkest contemporary chamber music projects where he worked with resident composer Mauricio Kagel.
Mr. Pellicano’s principal conducting teachers have been Dr. Harlan Parker, Per Andersberg and Shinik Hahm, while pursuing a MM in conducting from the Yale School of Music. Mr. Pellicano’s awards include two stipends from the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, Yale’s Phillip F. Nelson Award and the prestigious Presser Music Award.
The Longy Chamber Orchestra performs numerous concerts each academic year. Our concert calendar can be found at Longy’s website: www.longy.edu. All Longy Chamber Orchestra concerts are free and open to the public, but often do require tickets. To reserve tickets, contact [[email protected]]
The current 2009-2010 season includes:
Septemberfest 2009 All-Haydn Program Saturday, September 26, 2009 – 8pm Pickman Hall, Longy School of Music
Overture to Orfeo
Two Arias from Orfeo
Ru Da Ko, Soprano Filomena Abbandonata Al tuo seno fortunato
Cello Concerto no. 2 in D major
Ying-Jun Wei, Cello
Keyboard Concerto in D major
Kumiko Takeno, Piano
Symphony No. 92
Friday, October 23, 2009 - 8pm
Pickman Hall, Longy School of Music
Symphony No. 8 “Unfinished”………………………...…..Franz Schubert
Cello Concerto in B Minor………………………………..Antonin Dvorak
Mihail Jojatu, Cello
Friday, November 13, 2009 - 8pm Pickman Hall, Longy School of Music
Simple Symphony………………………….…………….Benjamin Britten
Overture to Coriolan……………………………...Ludwig Van Beethoven
Symphony No. 4 “Italian”…………………….………..Felix Mendelssohn
Sunday, February 7, 2010 – 7pm
Pickman Hall, Longy School of Music
Overture to Agrippina……………………….....George Frederick Handel
Concerto for Clarinet………………….……..Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Michael Wayne, Clarinet
Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten………………………..Arvo Pärt
Ma Mère L’Oye…………………………………………...Maurice Ravel
Thursday, March 11, 2010 – 7pm
Pickman Hall, Longy School of Music
Longy Chamber Winds
Repertoire TBA
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 – 8pm
Friday, April 23, 2010 – 8pm
Pickman Hall, Longy School of Music
Longy Opera Production
Repertoire TBA
Saturday, May 15, 2010 – 8pm
Pickman Hall, Longy School of Music
New composition by a Longy student (TBA)
Concerto featuring competition winner (TBA)
Symphony No. 2………………………………………Johannes Brahms