Youth Movements Festival XVII
The XVII annual festival takes place on two days and includes two distinct programs. Saturday night’s program includes a chamber music recital showcasing performers of all ages. Sunday’s program features a collaboration with the School for the Albany Berkshire Ballet and the Capital Duo with special guest Melinda Cestaro Conroy, Class of 2012 . This year’s festival is dedicated to Bernadette Socha Saturday, April 5th, at 7 PM Sunday, April 6th, at 3 PM
Department of Music and Theatre
University at Albany presents:
Youth Movements Festival XVII
Saturday, April 5, 2025 at 7pm
Sunday, April 6, 2025 at 3pm
UAlbany Performing Arts Center
Youth Movements Festival
Dedication
by Duncan Cumming
The 2025 Youth Movements Festival, the 17th, is dedicated with deep admiration to Bernadette Socha, the music department assistant during all my years in the department including my last three as Chair. She was a great supporter of the Youth Movements Festival in its infancy and created many beautiful brochures for the festival over the years.
Bernadette is one of the greatest colleagues I have ever had. She is intelligent, thoughtful, caring, hard-working, and kind. She anticipates and solves problems but she wants no credit or recognition for all of the solutions she finds. She is beloved by former, current, and prospective students and former, full -time, and part-time faculty, as well as the public. She has, without a doubt, been the most valuable member of this department for the eighteen years I’ve been here and she has held it all together through five different chairs, two programs merging, and new duties being constantly added. Bernadette is a great musician, a brilliant administrative assistant, and a true friend.
Dining in the 1844 restaurant and at our home, taking her Carillon requests, visiting colleagues in the hospital, attending awards ceremonies, playing Haydn together, dragging donated scores and records and drum sets across the cobblestones, and watching a mug catch fire in the microwave are only a few of the special and wonderful memories that I’ve been lucky enough to make with Bernadette. Spending this time with her not only as a colleague but as a friend has led me to hope that she will continue to use her wisdom to help people as a consultant or board member in the future. She is an absolute gem of a person and we will miss her so much here at the University at Albany. Music and Theatre will never be the same without her. While I will lose her as a colleague, my life is enriched by the fact that I will always be able to count her as one of my dearest friends.
Saturday, April 5, 2025
7:00 PM
Program
The Blue Danube Waltzes……………. Johann Strauss, Jr. (1825-1899)
Arr. Schulz-Evler
Arr. Abram Chasins
Melinda Cestaro Conroy, Duncan Cumming, pianos
Sonata in D major, K. 448……………………. W. A. Mozart Andante (1756-1791)
Lucy Cumming, Duncan Cumming, pianos
Cinq Pièces en Trio …………………………..
Jacques Ibert
Allegro vivo (1890-1962)
Arr. David Bussick
Pavane, Op 50
Gabriel Fauré
Andante molto moderato (1845-1924)
Arr. David Bussick
Magdalena Rosas, flute
Daniella Lucas, flute
Alyssa Cossentino, clarinet
Trio in E-flat………………………… Ludwig van Beethoven Scherzo (1770-1827)
Irem Erdogan, piano
Melissa Rosas, violin
Abigail Tsuji, cello
Sonata in E-flat, Op 12 No. 3…….. Ludwig van Beethoven
Allegro con spirito (1770-1827)
Jimin Jang, piano
Hilary Walther Cumming, Violin
Actus Tragics Sonatina, BWV 106……………….J.S. Bach (1685-1750) Arr. Kutág
Chloe Zhang and Anny Yin
Gigue from French Suite V………………...........J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
Chloe Zhang
Solfeggietto……………………………………...C.P.E. Bach (1714-1788)
Chloe Chan & Anny Yin
Air varié from 12 Album leaves for the youth, Op. 16.……………………......... S. Maykapar (1867-1938)
Aiden Jia
Minuet in G………………………………………… J.S. Bach
Larry Zeng and Anny Yu
Musette in D Major………………………………… J.S. Bach
Issac Chen and Anny Yu
Sonata II. Scherzo……………….................M. Mussorgsky (1839-1881)
Vincent Chen, Primo Susanna Kyaruns, Secondo
Sonata in C Major Hob XVI:50………………… F.J. Haydn (1732-1809)
Paul Brault
Sheep May Safely Graze………………………….J.S. Bach
Arrival of the Queen of Sheba………………… G.F. Handel (1685-1759)
Lingyi Wang and Young Kim
Transcendental Etude No.10 in F minor…....................F. Liszt (1811-1886)
Sean Cooney
Many thanks to Maura Hall, Young Kim, Susanna Kyaruns, Anny Yin, Hilary Cumming, and Akina Yura and especially to Mary Moran for helping to organize this performance!
Sunday, April 6, 2025
3:00 PM
The School of the Albany Berkshire Ballet
Madeline Cantarella Culpo, Founder
Lisa McBride, Director
Choreography by Deidre Duffin Swindlehurst
Alicia Hornicek
Lisa McBride
Kerry Piaggione
Hilary Cumming, violin
Duncan Cumming, piano
Melinda Cestaro Conroy, piano
Program
Canon in D major………………………...Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
Choreography by Alicia Hornicek
Performed by Academy 1&2:
Aileen Dadekian, Farrah Freiberg, Giana Hansen, Mabel Hoffman, Madeline Hornicek, Evangeline Luisi, Kinsey Marshall, Kayano Takeshima, Annabella Vacariello
Sonata in C sharp minor,
Op. 27 No. 2………………………...Ludwig van Beethoven Adagio sostenuto (1770-1827)
Choreography by Kerry Piaggione
Performed by Junior Academy: Maple Bee, Carolina Cooper, Millie Matthews, Olivia Medhus, Karina Mustac
Sonata in D Major, Opus 12, No.1………………………Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Allegro con brio
Tema con Variazioni: Andante con moto
Rondo: Allegro
Choreography by Lisa McBride & Deidre Duffin Swindlehurst
Performed by Junior Company: Fiona Allen, Addison Dinkels, Fiona Gokey, Caroline Maloney, Emilia Medhus, Emily Murray, Alexandra Mustac, Layla Sasson, Laura Stampalia, Grace Tavani, Cenzia Zhang
Intermezzo in A major, Op. 118, No. 2……………………………Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
The Blue Danube Waltzes……………..Johann Strauss, Jr. (1825-1899) Arr. by Schulz-Evler Arr. by Abram Chasins
School of the Albany Berkshire Ballet Academies and Junior Company
Many thanks to Madeline Cantarella Culpo, Lisa McBride, Kerry Piaggione, Alicia Hornicek, and Deidre Duffin Swindlehurst.
About the Musicians
Violinist Hilary Walther Cumming teaches at the University at Albany and performs as the violinist of the Capital Trio with American pianist Duncan Cumming and Turkish cellist Sölen Dikener. Before moving to New York, she served as concertmaster of the Cape Cod Sinfonietta and the Andover Chamber Orchestra; she has been heard as soloist with these ensembles as well as with the Reading Symphony Orchestra, Concord Orchestra, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Principal influences for her style and discipline are Joseph Silverstein, Franco Gulli and Shmuel Ashkenasi on modern violin, Stanley Ritchie on Baroque violin, and Seamus Connolly on Irish traditional fiddle. These outstanding artists continue to guide her and inspire her every moment she spends with her violin.
She has performed most extensively with the Capital Trio, ATHELAS (Denmark), Boston-based Sarasa, the Abbott Trio, and the Coleridge Ensemble. Her recordings can be found on Albany Records, Meridien and AFKA Records. As an orchestra musician, she has played in major halls on four continents; as a chamber musician she has recently toured Denmark, France and Switzerland with the Capital Trio. Her first love and passion remains the study and performance of chamber music.
Duncan J. Cumming, now in his nineteenth year on the faculty of the University at Albany, has performed concertos, recitals, and chamber music concerts in North America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. He has recorded three albums for the Centaur label. The first is a solo recording (CRC 3125) including music of Brahms, Debussy, Satie, and Chopin and the second is a historical instrument recording with Christopher Hogwood (CRC 3231) of the music of Carl Maria von Weber on Weber’s own 1815 Brodmann fortepiano. His most recent CD for Centaur (CRC 3834) came out in June of 2021, called From Bangkok to Bangor, and it is a story and music for children with narrator Lucy Cumming and illustrations by Hilary Cumming. He also has three chamber music recordings with Albany Records including A Book of Hours (TROY 1239), Threads of the Heart (TROY 1428)
and Distance (TROY 1864). He is the pianist of the Capital Trio, ensemble-in-residence at the University at Albany, and the trio has performed, lectured, and taught master classes in residencies at Williams College in Massachusetts and Cambridge University in England among other places. He lives in New York with his wife, the violinist Hilary Walther Cumming, and his children Lucy, Mairi, and William Bear.
A graduate of the University of Florida, Melinda Cestaro Conroy earned her Master of Music in piano performance in May 2014 under the instruction of Kevin Orr. In May of 2012, she graduated summa cum laude from the University at Albany, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in music with a concentration in piano performance and studied with Duncan Cumming.
During her time at UAlbany, she had numerous solo performance opportunities, performed chamber music and accompanied vocalists, was a member of the University Chamber Singers, and was a music theory assistant for three years. At the University of Florida, she held a graduate assistantshi p where her duties included teaching multiple sections of the four-semester undergraduate class piano sequence, teaching private piano lessons to vocal majors, and accompanying the women's chorale.
As a soloist, she has participated in summer music festivals including the Atlantic Music Festival in Maine in 2012 and the University of Florida International Piano Festival from 2013-2015, where she also worked as a program assistant and a theory teacher for the precollege division. She currently serves as the Director of Music at Christ the King Church in Guilderland, is a member of the Diocese of Albany’s Music Subcommittee, serves as treasurer and secretary of the Albany Chapter of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians (NPM), and accompanies vocalists and instrumentalists throughout the Capital Region.
Music Program (518) 442-4187
www.albany.edu/musicandtheatre
PerformingArts Center (518) 442-3995
www.albany.edu/pac
Theatre Program (518) 442-4200
www.albany.edu/musicandtheatre
HOUSE POLICIES
Latecomers will be seated at the discretion of the management and its staff.
The use of photographic or recording devices of any kind during this performance is strictly prohibited.
There is no food or drink allowed in the theatres, nor is smoking allowed in UAlbany buildings.
. To avoid disrupting the performance, kindly disable any noise making electronic devices you may have with you.
Please take time to note the location of the fire exits nearest to you. In the event of an emergency, an announcement will be made from the stage. Please proceed to the nearest exit in an orderly fashion.
The UAlbany Performing Arts Center’s six theatres, three lounges and other spaces are available for rental.
The UAlbany Performing Arts Center’s six theatres, three lounges and other spaces are available for rental.
