Program Also Includes Beethoven’s Fifth

The opportunity to perform publicly is frequently a major benefit of winning any music competition. The winner of this year’s DePaul Concerto Competition, French horn player DeAunn Davis, will have this valuable experience when she performs with the DePaul Symphony Orchestra and its distinguished conductor Cliff Colnot at a Nov. 11 concert.

Davis, who is currently completing her master’s degree in horn performance at DePaul, will partner with the orchestra to perform Gliere’s Horn Concerto. The concert will be held at 8 p.m. in the DePaul Concert Hall, 800 W. Belden Ave. This performance is one of the more than 300 free musical offerings DePaul’s School of Music presents to the city each year.

Colnot, who has guided the DePaul Symphony Orchestra since 1997, was the driving force behind the creation of the Concerto Competition six years ago. “Most young players spend countless hours working on their concertos with no accompaniment, or at best, only a piano accompaniment,” said Colnot, who also conducts of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s (CSO) MusicNow series and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. “The opportunity to play these important repertoire concertos with an excellent orchestra is a critical step in the development of a young musician’s professionalism and solo experience.”

The Concerto Competition, held in May, attracted exceptional talent from around the country. Fourteen students—instrumentalists and vocalists alike—entered this year’s proceedings. The judges included violinist Tom Hall, a member of the CSO, and DePaul faculty member, pianist Amy Dissanayake, and Colnot.

At DePaul, Davis studies with former CSO member Oto Carrillo and Jon Boen, principal horn for the Lyric Opera of Chicago. She is a member of the Chicago-based chamber group Fifth House. Previously, she was active in the LaSalle Bank MusiCorps program, and a member of the Civic Orchestra.

This is the first time that Davis is appearing as a soloist with the DePaul Orchestra. “It is tremendously exciting,” she said. “It will be wonderful to hear the orchestra from the front of the stage, just as a conductor hears it.”

The 1940 concerto, colorful and melodic, was penned in the Romantic vein, somewhat atypical for the mid-20th century, and is reminiscent of the earlier style of Russian composers such as Borodin and Glazunov.

The second half of the Nov. 11 concert will offer Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, one of the world’s most popular works, and a great showpiece for the orchestra.

Ninety members strong, the DePaul Symphony Orchestra has steadily gained in stature and reputation under the direction of Colnot. The annual spring concert at Orchestra Hall—slated for May 30, 2007—has become one of the hottest tickets in town for classical music audiences.