The EPSYOs will present their Season Finale concert on Sunday, April 25, 2010 at 3:00PM at the Plaza Theatre.

The concert will feature all four EPSYOs large ensembles in pieces including movements from Jean Sibelius’ “Karelia Suite,” and Arturo Marquez’s “Danzon No. 2.” The concert will also feature violin virtuoso Giora Schmidt in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor.

Born in 1983 to professional Israeli musicians, Mr. Schmidt began playing the violin at the age of four. At 13, he met Maestro Itzhak Perlman at the Perlman Music Program and at 16 was invited by Perlman to study under him full-time at the Juilliard Pre-College. Giora continued his studies with Perlman at the Juilliard School and also with the late violin pedagogue Dorothy DeLay.

Mr. Schmidt was the First Prize winner of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Greenfield Competition in 2000, the recipient of a 2003 Avery Fisher Career Grant, and in 2005 won the Classical Recording Foundation’s Samuel Sanders Award. He has also appeared with numerous symphony orchestras across  North America including, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, New Jersey, Fort Worth, Honolulu, San Diego, Toronto, Vancouver, and the Israel Philharmonic.

Tickets are $7/student, senior, military; $12/adult and are available by calling (915) 532 - 3776, or at the door the day of the concert (the box office will open at 2:00PM). 

Mr. Schmidt’s residency with the EPSYOs is generously underwritten by Mrs. Robert M. Graham, Sr.