News Release

Contact: Jeri Kornegay
Director of Media and Public Relations
260-982-5285  jskornegay@manchester.edu

Manchester Symphony opens 65^th season with Young Artists winners

NORTH MANCHESTER, Ind. (Oct. 17, 2003)  - The Manchester Symphony Orchestra will open its 65^th season on Sunday, Oct. 26 with music from 19^th and 20^th century composers from Great Britain, Germany, Norway and the United States.  Guest soloists are two former winners of the symphony's College Young Artist Competitions: pianist Abigail Falkiner of Tennessee and clarinetist Robyn Jones of Minnesota.

The 50-member community orchestra is comprised of Manchester College students, faculty and staff and residents of the area. The conductor is Robert G. Jones, associate professor of music/woodwinds. The Oct. 26 performance begins at 3 p.m. in Cordier Auditorium on the Manchester College campus.  General admission is $5, with students and senior citizens admitted free.

The program is American Salute by Morton Gould (United States), Piano Concerto in A minor by Edvard Grieg (Norway), Clarinet Concerto No. 2 in E flat by Carl Maria von Weber (Germany) and Cornish Dances by Malcolm Arnold (Great Britain).

Falkiner, a 2001 graduate of Manchester College, now teaches piano as adjunct faculty at Belmont University in Tennessee and at Belmont Academy, a precollege program. She holds a master's in piano performance from Indiana University-South Bend. While in South Bend, she performed and studied under concert pianist Alexander Toradze and Ketevan Badridze.  Falkiner won the MSO Young Artist Competition in 1999.

Jones is daughter of clarinetist/conductor Robert Jones.  She won the MSO and the Fort Wayne Philharmonic Young Artist Competition in 1991.  She recently performed Mahler's Eighth Symphony with the Minnesota Orchestra and as a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago from 1998-2000, performed with Daniel Barenboim, Pinchas Zuckerman, Pierre Boulez and Mstislav Rostropovich.  While in Chicago, she also performed with the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Sinfonietta and the Chicago Opera Theater.  She has performed as principal clarinet with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic and the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra.  Currently teaching at the University of Minnesota, she also has taught at Florida State University and Luzerne Music Center in New York.  Jones has a bachelor's degree from Indiana University, a master's from Florida State University and is a doctoral candidate at the University of Minnesota.