Washington Idaho Symphony's Young Artists' Concert

Meet soprano Karina Brazas and violinist Emily Christine Holmes, the
Washington Idaho Symphony's winners of their 33rd annual Young Artists' Competition.

Karina, on the left, is completing her final year as a Vocal Performance major at Washington State University through the School of Music. Karina studies voice with Dr. Sheila Converse. She sang the very beautiful and challenging Je veux vivre from Charles Gounod's opera Romeo and Juliet.

Here's a video of that gorgeous aria featuring soprano Angela Gheorgiu.




High school senior, Emily, is a native of Moscow, Idaho and began playing the violin at age four. She was concertmaster of the Greater Palouse Youth Orchestra for two years, and has been a member of the Washington-Idaho Symphony and the Rendezvous Orchestra. In 2007 she won a gold medal for her solo performance at MusicFest Northwest in Spokane. She currently studies with Dr. Meredith Arksey of Washington State University's School of Music. Emily played the first movement of Edouard Lalo's technically demanding Symphonie Espagnole.

This is a piece that you need to see as well as hear. Watch how Lalo has the violinist, in this case Silvia Marcovici, use the entire fretboard.



I thought that the Washington Idaho Symphony sounded particularly good under the direction of guest conductor Travis Hatton, who has a very engaging manner.



Before leading the symphony in Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 2 Maestro Hatton recommended a biography of Brahms written by Jan Swafford. Johannes is looking mighty fine on the cover of this book!

























Thanks to Cyrus O'Leary's Pies for providing the delicious pies that we enjoyed at intermission and after the concert. I was torn between their pumpkin (which is almost as good as my mom's and that's saying a lot!) the French Silk and the Marionberry. Note caption below. I decided on the Marionberry, an award winning pie with NO refined sugar. Delicious!