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Arts & Entertainment

New West Symphony Presents: Serenade to Music

New West Symphony concertmaster Danielle Belen will make her Symphony solo debut at New West Symphony's Serenade to Music concert.  She will play Felix Mendelssohn’s Concerto in E Minor for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 64.  The program will also include Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Opus 98 by Johannes Brahms.  Guest conductor Steven Mercurio will lead three performances of the program.  The performance will take place on Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 4:00 pm at Barnum Hall on the Campus of Santa Monica High School, located at 601 Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica.

Danielle Belen’s appointment as concertmaster began with the 2011/2012 season. She started playing with the Symphony during the 2004/2005 season and has served as assistant and associate concertmaster as well as concertmaster during the intervening years.  Ms. Belen won First Prize in the 2008 Sphinx Competition.  She has appeared as soloist with the Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Nashville and San Francisco Symphonies, the Boston Pops and the Florida and Cleveland Orchestras.  A graduate of the USC Thornton School of Music and the Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles, Ms. Belen is now on the faculty of the Colburn School and is a teaching assistant to renowned violin pedagogue Robert Lipsett. 

Guest conductor Steven Mercurio’s accomplishments encompass both the symphonic and operatic worlds. He has conducted more than 45 different operas in seven different languages, at many of the world’s great opera houses. He served for five years as music director of the Spoleto Festival and principal conductor of the Opera Company of Philadelphia. He has conducted orchestras throughout Europe and the United States, and collaborated as an arranger with a wide array of artists including Andrea Bocelli, Placido Domingo, Bryn Terfel, Sting and Chick Corea.

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Complete biographies of Danielle Belen and Steven Mercurio are available at www.newwestsymphony.org.

The Masterpiece Series is sponsored by Jennifer & Craig Zobelein.  This concert is sponsored by the New West Symphony League.

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