November 17th: Cellist Sebastian Baverstam to perform at the Art Trail Gallery

Sebastian Baverstam, cellist will be featured at the “Concerts at the Gallery” series on Sunday Nov. 17, 2013. The program begins at 5PM in the Art Trail Gallery on the Corner of W Evans and Irby in downtown Florence. Tickets are $10 at the door for the 1 hour program with a reception to follow. The program includes works by Bach, Baverstam, and Kodaly.

Praised by The Strad for his “…powerfully expressive style,” cellist Sebastian Bäverstam is a winner of the 2009 Concert Artists Guild International Competition. His recent performance at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall was noted in The Strad for its “consummate instrumental mastery,” with critic Dennis Rooney declaring “…the emergence of a mature artist.” This remarkable recital led to Mr. Bäverstam’s subsequent selection by Musical America as its “New Artist of the Month” for June 2011.

Highlights of the 2013-14 season include concerto engagements with the South Bend Symphony (Dvorak concerto) and the Cape Cod Symphony (Saint-Saëns), and other recent concerto appearances include the Dupage (IL) and Mankato (MN) Symphony Orchestras (both Strauss Don Quixote) and the South Bay Symphony in Myrtle Beach, SC (Saint-Saëns Concerto No. 1). His cross-country recital tours encompass over twenty-five concerts in fifteen different states, including performances for the Pepperdine University Center for the Arts, Detroit Institute of Arts, the Chamber Music Society of Little Rock and last season’s opening recital for the Rising Stars series of the Ravinia Festival, where he also spent the summer of 2012 as a member of Ravinia’s renowned Steans Institute.

Sebastian Bäverstam, age twenty-four, has appeared multiple times on the nationally syndicated radio show From the Top, and he has also been heard on international radio broadcasts on Voice of America. On television, he was featured on the PBS version of From the Top, and he has participated in a PBS documentary filmed at Carnegie Hall, as well as a film by the Masterclass Media Foundation of Great Britain and a nationally televised commercial for Bose speakers.



A winner of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Concerto Competition, Mr. Bäverstam performed the Shostakovich Concerto with the BSO at Symphony Hall. In 2007, he was called on to substitute for Lynn Harrell with the Cape Cod Symphony on only six hours notice. He delighted the audience playing Schumann’s Cello Concerto and was praised by the Cape Cod Times for his “insightful musicianship and poetic feeling.”

October 7th: Cellist Wesley Baldwin to perform in Florence

Top 5 Reasons to See Opening Night of the Florence Symphony Concert Season

1. Live music in a beautiful hall

2. Extremely talented musicians

            - Florence's own and special guest cellist Wesley Baldwin

3. Reasonable price to hear excellence

4. Uniqueness - Once the night is over this particular show is gone for good.

5. It's the Opening Night of a brand new concert season!

So order your tickets NOW! Prime seating is going quickly! Tickets start at $29 for adults with senior and student discounts available. Call the FMU Performing Arts Box Office at 843.661.4444 to reserve your seats for an amazing FSO Opening Night. The concert is Monday, October 7, 2013 in the FMU Performing Arts Center beginning at 7:30 PM. The program will feature:

            Overture to Rienzi                                          Richard Wagner

            Variations on a Rococo Theme, op. 33           P.I. Tchaikovsky

Wesley Baldwin, cello

             Mathis der Maler: Symphony                        Paul Hindemith

Cellist Wesley Baldwin performs throughout the United States and Europe as soloist and chamber musician. As a soloist he has appeared with the Laredo Philharmonic, the Oregon Mozart Players, the Symphony of the Mountains, the Bryan Symphony, the Oak Ridge Symphony, New River Valley, Salisbury, and Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestras and the Wintergreen and Hot Springs Festival Orchestras, among others. Concerts this year include performances of the David Ott Double Cello Concerto in Tennessee and Missouri, solo cello concerti in South Dakota, and Minnesota, as well as solo recitals throughout the United States. In the summer of 2012 Wesley performed the complete Bach Cello Suites at the Wintergreen Festival, a cycle he repeated several times in the 2012-13 season. In the 2013-14 season Baldwin will perform concertos with the Oak Ridge, Manchester the Chattanooga Symphonies

The Florence Symphony is led by Music Director Dr. Terry Roberts, celebrating his 10^th year on the symphony’s podium.

January 13th: St. John's Church to open its 8th Annual Epiphany Concert Series

St. John’s Church in Florence will open its Eighth Annual Epiphany Concert Series with a performance by cellist Richard Thomas on Sunday, January 13 at 6:00 p.m. in the church’s parish hall. Dr. Thomas will be accompanied by pianist Nathaniel Fryml. The concert will feature works by Boccherini, Brahms, and Piazolla.

There is no charge for the concerts, but donations are appreciated. Light refreshments will be provided. St. John’s is located at 252 S. Dargan Street in Florence. Parking is available in the lot behind the church.

Dr. Richard Thomas is Assistant Professor of Music at Presbyterian College and director of the Presbyterian College Chamber Orchestra. He is a member the Greater Anderson Musical Arts Consortium Orchestra in Anderson, South Carolina, and founding member of the North Carolina-based Atlantean Trio. Thomas spent a decade in Latin America as a member of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Colombia (Bogotá), the OrquestaSinfónica del Valle (Cali), the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional (Dominican Republic), and as faculty member of the Universidad del Cauca, Universidad del Valle in Colombia, and the Conservatorio Nacional of the Dominican Republic. He has been a member of the South Carolina Philharmonic, the Augusta Symphony, the East Texas Symphony, the Dallas Lyric Opera Orchestra, and most recently was principal cellist of the Wilmington Symphony and Tallis Chamber Orchestra in North Carolina. In addition, Thomas has been on the faculties of the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and from 1999-2008 was String Department Head at Camp Encore-Coda in Sweden, Maine. In 2010 Thomas gave a series of recitals in Japan including performances at the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, and Tohoku Fukushi University in Sendai, and gave a series of pre-college master classes at the Jhong-Shin School in Taipei, Taiwan. Thomas studied at the Cleveland Institute, DePauw University, Temple University, the University of North Texas, and received a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of South Carolina.

Nathaniel Fryml is a pianist, conductor, and composer currently residing in upstate South Carolina. He serves as Director of Music at Broad Street United Methodist Church in Clinton, SC, and works as staff accompanist at Presbyterian College and Clemson University. He also teaches through the Piedmont Music Program in Clinton and has served on the faculty of Piedmont Technical College. Increasingly active as a choral and instrumental conductor, Mr. Fryml received his primary training as a pianist, earning a dual degree in piano and music theory/composition from Furman University and the Master of Music degree in piano performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Mr. Frymlis a member of the Music Teachers National Association and the American Choral Directors Association.

The remainder of the series slate is as follows: Blue Mountain Ensemble (bassoon, flute, piano), January 20; Jazz Charleston Trio, January 27; Svetlana and Milana Streveza (soprano, piano), February 10. A downloadable brochure is available at www.stjohnsflorence.org.