Concert Program
CARLOS SIMON | Fate Now Conquers
SAINT-SAËNS | Violin Concerto No. 3
TCHAIKOVSKY | Symphony No. 4
Alex Amsel, conductor
Blake Pouliot, violin
Ticket Information
Prices: Gold $65 / Red $40 / Green $20
Students tickets $10
Youth 17 and under free with an accompanying adult
Biographies
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Argentinian-born conductor Alex Amsel is quickly establishing himself as a conductor equally at home with orchestral and operatic repertoire, as well as a music educator for students of all ages. Amsel’s hope is to integrate music into the fabric of every community he works with to reshape how we think about society and our place in it. He was appointed Conducting Fellow for the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra for the 2019-2021 seasons, where he will lead the orchestra in a variety of concerts including Symphonic, Pops, and Education programs. Amsel was selected for the prestigious Aspen Conducting Academy for the 2020 summer where he will work closely with Robert Spano. For the summer of 2019, Amsel was selected as the Assistant Conductor for the National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge, Colorado, where he led the orchestra in multiple subscription concerts. Other recent engagements include Assistant Conductor and Choir Master for the Peabody Conservatory Symphonies and Opera, and Faculty Conductor for the Philadelphia International Music Festival.
As an educator, Amsel leads numerous concerts every season with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra while creating programs that unify the students’ school curriculum while exposing them to the magic and wondrous world of music. He has been on the faculty for the Philadelphia International Music Festival, Houston Youth Symphony, and has taught with the Orchestra of the Americas in Haiti, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic. During his time in Peabody, he served the Baltimore community in several ways through the Creative Leadership Immersion and Implementing Social Development programs. These programs helped connect the conservatory to the greater Baltimore community by helping emerging music programs at low-income schools. Amsel supported students in creating original compositions that reflect their daily lives while discussing the importance of music and how it can supplement a young person’s life through communication, open discussions, and vocal leadership. He has been a featured performer and taught masterclasses through these organizations, as well as having had an active private bassoon studio of 30 weekly students in Austin and Houston, Texas.
Amsel completed his studies under the tutelage of Marin Alsop at the Peabody Conservatory as her Graduate Assistant while working towards his Masters in Music in Orchestral Conducting. Amsel has also studied privately with Larry Rachleff, Cristian Macelaru, and Miguel Harth-Bedoya as well as having appeared in masterclasses with David Effron, David Zinman, and Hannu Lintu. Amsel has been the recipient of numerous scholarships and awards such as the New England Conservatory Presidential Scholarship, Peabody Conservatory Graduate Assistantship, and Peabody Conservatory Graduate Grant. He has conducting experience with Baltimore and Fort Worth Symphonies, Buffalo Philharmonic, as well as the New England Conservatory and Peabody Conservatory orchestras.
As a bassoonist, Amsel has appeared with such orchestras as the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra and Round Top Festival Orchestra and held positions with the Boston Philharmonic, Austin Symphony Orchestra, Breckenridge Music Festival, Austin Lyric Orchestra, Symphony of Southeast Texas, and Orchestra of Indian Hill.
Contemporary music forefront in Amsel’s musical journey and has premiered works both as conductor and instrumentalist. He has led recording sessions of world premieres at Peabody Conservatory as well as Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, and now presents concert series with the Fort Worth Symphony performing over 10 contemporary works each season. Amsel was selected within a pool of over 100 applicants to participate in the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music while closely working with Cristian Macelaru.
During his free time, Amsel is a biking, architecture, wine, and Golden Retriever aficionado.
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Described as “immaculate, at once refined and impassioned,” (ArtsAtlanta) violinist Blake Pouliot (pool-YACHT) has anchored himself among the ranks of classical phenoms. A tenacious young artist with a passion that enraptures his audience in every performance, Pouliot has established himself as “one of those special talents that comes along once in a lifetime” (Toronto Star).
Pouliot embarks on a fulfilling 2021/22 season that includes debuts with the Boise Philharmonic, Omaha Symphony, Plano Symphony, Sarasota Orchestra and Winnipeg Symphony; return engagements with the symphony orchestras of Vancouver, Naples, Nova Scotia, and Tallahassee; recitals in Sarasota, Miami, and his Philadelphia debut; and touring the works of Beethoven as returning Artist-in-Residence with NPR’s Performance Today throughout Europe.
In the 2020/21 season, Pouliot was the Artist-in-Residence at Orchestre Métropolitain, deepening his relationship with the orchestra’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, across a series of concerts and recorded projects. He was also seen in performance with the Orchestre symphonique de Quebec, Reno Chamber Orchestra, and Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. He curated and led chamber music programs presented by the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra and Artis-Naples and made his return to La Jolla Music Society SummerFest. A prolific recitalist and chamber musician who has performed in Chicago, Los Angeles, Montreal, Rockport, and Toronto, Pouliot was joined by pianist Hsing-I Huang at McGill University, University of Toronto, and the new RISE series in Miami.
Pouliot’s debut album, released on Analekta Records in 2019, features the works of Ravel and Debussy, and earned a five-star rating from BBC Music Magazine as well as a 2019 Juno Award nomination for Best Classical Album. Adding to his accolades that year, Pouliot won both the Career Development Award from the Women’s Club of Toronto and the Virginia Parker Prize Career Grant from the Canada Arts Council. He has been featured twice on Rob Kapilow’s What Makes it Great? series and was NPR’s Performance Today Artist-in-Residence for the 2017-18 season in Minnesota and the 2018-19 season in Hawaii. In 2016, he was awarded the Grand Prize at the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal Manulife Competition.
Since his orchestral debut at age 11, Pouliot has performed with the orchestras of Aspen, Atlanta, Detroit, Dallas, Madison, Montreal, Toronto, San Francisco, and Seattle, among many. Internationally, he has performed as soloist with the Sofia Philharmonic in Bulgaria, Orchestras of the Americas on its South American tour, and was the featured soloist for the first ever joint tour of the European Union Youth Orchestra and National Youth Orchestra of Canada. He has collaborated with many musical luminaries including conductors Sir Neville Marriner, David Afkham, Pablo Heras-Casado, David Danzmayr, JoAnn Falletta, Marcelo Lehninger, Nicholas McGegan, Alexander Prior, Vasily Petrenko and Thomas Søndergård.
Pouliot studied violin in Canada with Marie Bérard and Erika Raum, and he completed his training as an associate of The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. He graduated from the Colburn School Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Robert Lipsett, the Jascha Heifetz Distinguished Violin Chair.
Pouliot performs on the 1729 Guarneri del Gesù, on generous loan from the Canada Council for the Arts Musical Instrument Bank as First Laureate of both their 2018 and 2015 Competition.