Grand Valley Chamber Orchestra to perform in London

The Grand Valley Chamber Orchestra will perform three concerts in London during the first week of May. A local Sendoff Concert, open to the public with free admission, will be performed at Park Church,10 East Park Place NE, Grand Rapids, Sunday, April 28, at 3 p.m.

While in London the students will perform at Kingston University, the London College of Music and, as part of the Notting Hill Chamber Music Series at St. John’s Church. The performance tour is a result of the ongoing partnership between Grand Valley and Kingston University.

“This is the first European tour of the Chamber Orchestra,” said conductor Henry Duitman, director of orchestral activities at Grand Valley. “The 14 students have been working hard to rehearse a demanding program and to raise their portion of the trip’s expenses.” Additional encouragement and generous support is being provided by the Music Department, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Padnos International Center.

Duitman has selected a varied program which includes works by British composers William Boyce and Hubert Parry, as well as American composer John Corigliano and Swedish composer Dag Wirén. Pablo Mahave-Veglia, Grand Valley associate professor of music, will also be traveling and performing with the orchestra. His cello solos will include a concerto by Italian composer Luigi Boccherini and a contemporary tour de force by Chilean composer Andrés Alcalde entitled “Der Mondbach II.”

Through the encouragement of Grand Valley’s Padnos International Center, the music departments of Grand Valley and Kingston have completed several collaborations during the last three years. David Osbon, previously head of Collegiate Music at Kingston and a composer, has visited Grand Valley several times. In June 2011 Duitman and Grand Valley music faculty member Kevin Tutt visited Kingston and conducted their Chamber Orchestra. Most notably, under the guidance of Osbon, the two departments united with a music conservatory in The Hague and produced a ground-breaking webcast, “Bodies In Motion,” for the London Cultural Olympics in July 2012.