Copious Notes

The Lexington Philharmonic’s new music director, Scott Terrell, is going to start his tenure with more marquee names on the season schedule than the orchestra has had in quite a while. In addition to Evelyn Glennie, probably the best-known classical solo percussionist in the world Sept. 25, the Phil will also present:

Ronan Tynan.

Irish tenor Ronan Tynan in a concert that will be part of the Alltech Fortnight Festival Oct. 10. Tynan came to fame as one of the Three Irish Tenors and has been a ubiquitous presence at New York Yankees games in the past decade singing the full version of God Bless America. Terrell says this concert will probably tell him a lot about possible directions in which to take a revived Philharmonic Pops season.

World-renowned violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg will join the orchestra for an April 17 concert benefitting UK HealthCare. Terrell says Sonnenberg will be playing Astor Piazolla’s take on The Four Seasons.

Nadja Salerno Sonnenberg. Photo by Grant Leighton.

The violinist added for the Feb. 12 Masterclassics concert is also a bit of a get: Arnaud Sussmann, who won a prestigious Avery Fisher career grant in April along with Alessio Bax, who is the pianist with the UBS Chamber Music Festival of Lexington, Aug. 26-30.

Also added to the full schedule, which will be released next week, are family concerts on Oct. 25 (a Youth Arts concert that will feature members of the Central Kentucky Youth Orchestras playing with the Phil and other young artists) and Dec. 13, which will bring Paragon Music Theatre director Ryan Shirar back to the Philharmonic podium.

When it rains, it pours in Lexington’s classical music world.

Friday, we heard Scott Terrell was taking the baton for the Lexington Philharmonic. Monday, we learned Kayoko Dan will ascend the podium for the Central Kentucky Youth Orchestras. Today, we can report on a new guy will be conducting the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, and he already has a job at UK.

Rich Brooks signs his commemorative bottles for fans at Keeneland on April 10. Photo by Charles Bertram | LexGo.

Head football coach Rich Brooks will borrow the baton from orchestra director John Narolillo to conduct the UK Symphony for a performance of John Philip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever at the beginning of Friday night’s otherwise all-Beethoven concert.

The guest conductor gig is part of the University of Kentucky Symphony’s status as the beneficiary of  this year’s Maker’s Mark commemorative bottle for UK athletics. The bottle features Brooks likeness, in recognition of his UK Symphony-like success the last three seasons, and proceeds are going to the orchestra’s educational efforts.

The idea came up, Nadolillo said, when he and Brooks were dipping the bottles in blue and white wax.

“I said, ‘Why don’t you come conduct the orchestra,’” Nardolillo recalled. “He said, ‘OK, what do you want me to conduct?’ I said, ‘How about Beethoven’s Ninth?’ He said, ‘Fine. And you can coach the LSU game.’”

For those unfamiliar with both professions, those would be comparable tasks.

Nardolillo, by the way, will conduct the rest of Friday’s concert, which will include Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 “Choral,” featuring the UK choirs directed by Jefferson Johnson and Lori Hetzel, and Symphony No. 1.

Nardolillo says the orchestra stands to receive $1.2 million from the project, sponsored by Maker’s Mark and the Keeneland Foundation, which will go into an endowment fund for educational outreach programs.