The Salisbury Symphony offers a Family Concert this Sunday at 4 p.m. in Varick Auditorium at Livingstone College.
The upcoming concert is full of young talent. The two soloists, Dustin Wilkes-Kim, violinist, and Richard He, pianist, are 12 and 13, respectively, about the same age as the 150 members of the All-County Fifth Grade Honors Chorus, also performing Sunday. The concert also features the Salisbury Youth Orchestra, including elementary through high school students.
And, though they will feel older by comparison, the choral students from Catawba and Livingstone colleges will raise youthful voices to the rafters. Even the poetry on display in the lobby, penned by sixth-, seventh-and eighth-graders from Erwin Middle School.
Music Director David Hagy selected the works for this concert with fun in mind. Mozart’s Divertimento was written by him before he was a teenager. There’s music by Camille Saint-Saens, Tchaikovsky and Gilbert and Sullivan.
The centerpiece of the concert is written by Micah Levy and entitled “Peter Piper’s Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation.” Narrator/singers Teresa Radomski and Doug Crawley will lead the audience through a musical alphabet themed on the rhyme scheme of “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”
Dustin Wilkes-Kim has been playing the violin for six years, and is already an accomplished violinist. In February 2008, he made his solo debut with the Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestra, playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto (third movement).
Over the past two years, Dustin has raised over $3,400 in benefit concerts for such worthy causes as Juvenile Diabetes, Saint Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital and the Forsyth County Mental Health Association. He has shared his musical talent in churches, retirement communities, banquets, retirement parties special birthday celebrations and many other venues.
Dustin has also won a number of prestigious violin competitions. In 2007, he placed first in the Peter Perret Youth Talent Search sponsored by the Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestra. He was also the 2007 state winner of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Competition and went on to become the regional alternate in that contest. He won honorable mention in the 2007 Associated Strings Teachers Association (ASTA) Competition in the 11-19 year old category, and advanced to the semi-final round of the 2008 ASTA competition. Dustin is this year’s alternate winner for the NC-MTNA competition.
In summer 2008, Dustin attended the UNCSA (University of North Carolina School of the Arts) Summer Chamber Music Institute and will be attending UNCSA as an eighth-grade student next fall.
Dustin has Sarah Johnson (artist faculty at UNCSA, and associate professor of violin at the Petrie School of Music at Converse College) as his primary violin teacher. He also occasionally studies with his first violin teacher Hong Mei Zhou, who is a member of the Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestra.
Dustin plays a violin made by Kurt Widenhouse, an award winning violinmaker who works out of Belmont.
In addition to his passion for music, Dustin enjoys drawing, origami, pottery, creating geometric designs, and collecting rocks, gems and fossils. He lives with his parents and cat, Riley, in Winston-Salem.
Richard He is 13 years old and has been playing the piano for about six and a half years. He presently studies piano with John Ruggero, and studied previously with Zinaida Astrakhan.
Richard has won awards in many local and state competitions, including first place at the 2007 Senior Division of the Peter Perret Youth Talent Search and second-place in the 2007 NC Symphony Concerto Competition.
He is the first-place winner of the 2008 Music Teachers National Association NC Junior Piano Competition, and also received first place in the Loren Withers Piano Competition in 2008. He had a solo appearance with the Winston-Salem Symphony in February 2008.
Richard also plays the violin and is the concertmaster of the Cary Academy Middle School Orchestra.
He participated in the Eastern Regional All-State Orchestra and played chamber music with the Mallarmé Youth Chamber Orchestra at the 2008 summer workshop.
Ticket prices are lowered for this family event: adult tickets are $17; seniors are $14; students (ages 9-18) are $4; and children 8 years and younger may attend for only $2 each.
Cloninger Ford/Toyota/Scion is the concert sponsor, and WDAV 89.9 FM is the media sponsor.
Tickets are available at Rowan County Convention & Visitors Bureau, Belk (Salisbury Mall), Sidewalk Deli, A Step In Time, Escape the Daily Grind (Spencer), and Crescent Pharmacy (Rockwell).
Ticket information to this concert can be found by calling 704-637-4314, or by visiting www.salisburysymphony.org.