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A Music and Power Conference Performance by the Chamber Singers, Collegiate Chorale, and Symphony Orchestra, directed by Ricardo Averbach.

The choirs and orchestra combine to perform Prokofiev's Cantata Alexander Nevsky, with soloist Professor Opatz-Muni, mezzo soprano. Also on the program, the Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto with the internationally renowned violinist Bin Huang and Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1. with student soloist Molly Jones, winner of the 2012 Miami University Concerto Competition and Havighust Center Special Award.

About the Artists

Bin Huang endeared herself to the musical world when at age fourteen she won the Junior Wieniawski International Violin Competition in Lublin, Poland, sharing first prize with Maxim Vengerov. She has maintained international prominence, winning both the Paganini International Violin Competition in Genoa, Italy in 1994, and the Munich (ARD) International Music Competition in 1999.

Ms. Huang has been universally lauded for her interpretive and technical skills, hailed as "a winner in what matters the most" (The Washington Post) and "a talent that leaves a listener flabbergasted" (The Sun, Baltimore). Besides winning the Wieniawski, the Paganini, and the Munich competitions, she is also a laureate in other world's most prestigious competitions including the Indianapolis, the Queen Elisabeth, and the Tchaikovsky International Violin Competitions.

Cantata Alexander Nevsky

Prokofiev transports us to the 13th century for a tale of war, treason and the power of the common people united by a hero. The music was originally written for one of the most influential movies of its era, directed by Sergei Eisenstein. Its famous 30-minute battle sequence has influenced everything from Laurence Olivier's Henry V (1944) to the Star Wars films. In particular, the white-caped, metal-helmeted Teutonic knights prefigure George Lucas' storm troopers, while a particularly evil-looking monk is a dead ringer for the Emperor in Return of the Jedi. The soundtrack by Sergei Prokofiev has been reworked as a cantata and became one of the hallmark choral works of the 20th century and one of Prokofiev's most popular compositions.

Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1

Senior student Molly Jones, winner of the 2012 Miami University Concerto Competition and Havighurst Center Special Award will perform a compelling rendition of Shostakovich's First Cello Concerto. Like Prokofiev, Shostakovich was one of the first composers to dedicate substantial compositions to the prominent cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.

In this concerto, the composer seemed to find an intensity of emotional focus that simply demanded the most unembellished directness. It has been suggested that the main theme of this concerto represents the composer himself, facing "the conflicts and challenges of creative life in a dynamic society." In other words, this concerto is a product of the struggle of music and power.

The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto

A marvel of lushness and beauty, this concerto is a wonderful mix of the Western symphonic tradition with Chinese folk music and vocal techniques. Composers Zhanhao and Gang originally wrote the concerto for a Western violin, imitating the sound of the erhu. The erhu is a traditional bowed Chinese instrument that has only two strings???and no fingerboard???attached to a resonating body typically encased in snakeskin. The lack of a fingerboard allows for extreme vibrato and bending of pitches. This beautiful, intimately emotive instrument was most often used to express weeping and intense emotion.

Considered the most performed violin concerto in the world, it is a typical example of program music in the Romantic tradition, an ode to eternal lovers in the tradition of Romeo and Juliet. A young woman named Zhu Ying Tai disguised herself as a man to attend a school in Hangzhou. On her way there, she met a fellow traveller and schoolmate named Liang Shan Bo. They became good friends and swore honorary brothers. For three years, they studied and lived together. Yet, Liang never realized that Zhu was a woman. Before their graduation, Zhu asked Liang to visit her in her hometown and promised to marry her "fictitious" younger sister to him. When Liang arrived, he was ecstatic to discover her true identity. However, their hope of marriage was soon dashed when Zhu's parents betrothed Zhu to their schoolmate Ma Wen Cai. Liang died of a broken heart. On Zhu's wedding day to Ma, she tore off her wedding gown and threw herself against Liang's tomb, which opened up and enveloped Zhu. Then, from the tomb, a pair of butterflies emerged.

After an initial good reaction to the work in the late 1950s and early '60s, the Chinese Cultural Revolution condemned Western culture. The individualist nature of the story as well as its non-atheistic connotations were considered anti-Communist. As a result, the young composers as well as the violinist who premiered the piece were arrested for crimes worse than murder.