Orpheus, Pianist Goode Featured in WFU Concert

The 8 p.m. concert will feature Goode as the piano soloist for Mozart’s “Concerto No. 17 in G major for Piano and Orchestra, K. 453.” The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra will also perform Copland’s “Three Latin American Sketches” and Tchaikovsky’s “Souvenir de Florence.”

Orpheus was founded in New York City in 1972 when cellist Julian Fifer gathered together a group of fellow musicians to form a chamber music orchestra. He established a group with an unusually democratic structure. The orchestra is a self-governing organization-together they make interpretive decisions that are ordinarily the work of the conductor. They also choose the repertoire and create the programs as a group.

Of the 17 string and 9 wind players who comprise the basic membership of Orpheus, many also teach at conservatories and universities in the New York and New England areas, including the Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes College of Music and Yale University.

Orpheus’ collection of more than 40 recordings includes several Haydn symphonies and Mozart serenades; the complete Mozart wind concertos with Orpheus members as soloists; romantic works by Dvorak, Grieg and Tchaikovsky; and a number of 20th century classics by Bartok, Prokofiev, Copland and Stravinsky.

Goode has been acknowledged worldwide as one of today’s leading interpreters of the music of Beethoven. His Beethoven interpretations first came to national attention in 1986, when he played Beethoven’s five concerti with David Zinman and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. He earned Grammy and Gramophone nominations for his recording of Beethoven’s 32 sonatas in 1994. Performing throughout the United States and Europe, Goode has been a frequent guest with major orchestras across the country, including the Cleveland Orchestra and the Boston and Chicago Symphonies. In Europe, Goode appeared with the Berlin Radio, Finnish Radio and Bamberg symphonies.

A native of New York, Goode studied at Mannes College of Music and Curtis Institute. He has won many prizes, including the Young Concert Artists Award, first prize in the Clara Haskil Competition, the Avery Fisher Prize and a Grammy award with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman. A founding member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Goode first gained prominence as a chamber musician.

Goode has made more than two dozen recordings, including Mozart concerti with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and chamber and solo works of Brahms, Schubert and Schumann. Orpheus and Goode were nominated for a 1997 Grammy Award for best instrumental soloist with orchestra for recordings of Mozart’s symphonies No. 18 and 20.

Tickets for the concert are $17.50 for adults and $12.50 for non-Wake Forest students.

Tickets are available from the University Theatre Box Office at (336) 758-5295. The box office is open noon-5:30 p.m. weekdays. For more information, call (336) 758-5757.