SC Philharmonic partners with The Jasper Project for The Art of Symphony on April 27th at the Koger Center for the Arts
March 27, 2024
Cross-disciplinary event features cellist Sterling Elliott performing Tchaikovsky’s “Variations on a Rococo Theme”
The South Carolina Philharmonic, winner of the 2024 Governor’s Award for the Arts, presents The Art of Symphony on Saturday, April 27 at 7:30 PM at the Koger Center for the Arts under the baton of Music Director Morihiko Nakahara. This concert is a partnership with The Jasper Project and will feature 14 new works by SC visual artists that were created in response to the music on the program. The program opens with Japanese composer Karen Tanaka’s Rose Absolute. Then audiences will enjoy Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, featuring phenom cellist Sterling Elliott. The evening concludes with Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 in D minor. This cross-disciplinary program is the season closer for the SC Phil. All Masterworks concerts are presented in person and livestreamed this season, and tickets ($25-$55) may be purchased at www.scphilharmonic.com or by calling (803) 251-2222.
In partnership with The Jasper Project, The Art of Symphony has invited 14 Columbia-based visual artists to listen and respond to individual movements of the SC Phil’s symphonic program in advance of the season finale on April 27th at the Koger Center for the Arts. Their completed paintings will be projected on screens during the concert as well as exhibited at the Koger Center’s Nook Gallery space on the second level of the hall. The images, along with information about the artists and essays by Jasper Project executive director Cindi Boiter, and SC Philharmonic marketing director and project architect Chad Henderson, will also be published in a signed and numbered limited edition book, available for purchase at the concert.
The participating artists are Stephen Chesley, Anthony Lewis, Alejandro Garcia-Lemos, Keith Tolen, Lindsay Radford Wiggins, Wilma Ruth King, K. Wayne Thornley, Fred Townsend, Regina Langston, Michael Krajewski, Thomas Washington, Eileen Blyth, Lori Starnes Isom, and Laura Garner Hine.
The centerpiece of The Art of Symphony is phenom cellist Sterling Elliott performing Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, op. 33. Acclaimed for his stellar stage presence and joyous musicianship, Elliott is a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient and the winner of the Senior Division of the 2019 National Sphinx Competition. Already in his young career, he has appeared with major orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony and the Dallas Symphony, with noted conductors Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Thomas Wilkins, Jeffrey Kahane, Mei Ann Chen and others.
The public is also invited to join the artists for The Jasper Project’s gallery opening on Thursday April 18, 2024, from 5:30 – 7:00 PM in the Nook Gallery on the second floor of the Koger Center lobby. Attendees can meet the participating artists and get a up-close-and-personal look at the works that will be projected during the concert.
The Art of Symphony is sponsored in part by Samuel C. Waters & Dr. Mary Baskin Waters. Sterling Elliot is sponsored by Truist. This program is also made possible through grant support from the City of Columbia H-Tax Grant Program, the Richland County H-Tax Grant Program, and the South Carolina Arts Commission which is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts and collaborates in its work with the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies and South Arts.
For more information about the South Carolina Philharmonic, please visit SCPhilharmonic.com or follow on Facebook and Instagram.
