GREAT HALL CHAMBER ORCHESTRA GIVES SPRING CONCERT

Internationally acclaimed cellist William Stokking will be the soloist with the Great Hall Chamber Orchestra as it performs on Friday, March 17, at 8 p.m. in Bryn Mawr's Thomas Great Hall. The ensemble of 36 young professional and conservatory musicians is presenting its spring concert under the direction of its founding conductor Michael Krausz, a professor of philosophy at Bryn Mawr College.

Lecturer and musician Michael Johns will give a pre-concert lecture, "How to Be an Active Listener," at 7 p.m. in Thomas 110.

Tickets are $15 for the general admission, and free for all students. For reservations call 610-526-5332 or e-mail Lorraine Kirschner at: lkirschn@brynmawr.edu.

The program, which opens with Mozart's Overture to "The Marriage of Figaro" and closes with Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, the "Eroica," features Stokking as the soloist in Saint-Saën's Cello Concerto no. 1.

Well known to Philadelphia audiences, Stokking studied with Gregor Piatigorsky at the Curtis Institute of Music and Felix Salmond and Leonard Rose at the Juilliard School of Music. He served as principal cello of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1973 until his retirement in 2005. He continues to perform and teach at the Curtis Institute of Music.

Krausz studied conducting with his late father, conductor Laszlo Krausz, with Frederik Prausnitz at the Peabody Conservatory, and with Luis Biava, former Resident Conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra. A guest conductor of numerous professional orchestras in Bulgaria, including the Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra, Krausz is the Milton C. Nahm Professor of Philosophy at Bryn Mawr College and teaches aesthetics at the Curtis Institute of Music.

Krausz founded the Great Hall Chamber Orchestra in 2005 in an inaugural program that included soloist Lionel Party, harpsichordist of the New York Philharmonic and instructor at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School.

Lecturer Michael Johns, a French hornist and personnel manager for the Great Hall Chamber Orchestra, has toured with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He is currently on the faculties of Temple University and Swarthmore College.

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