Friendship & Faith

Saturday, August 23

Pre-concert Talk at 6:30pm; Concert begins at 7:30pm

Sullivan MS Auditorium

Christopher James Lees, Conductor

William Shaub, Violinist

Elgar: “Nimrod” Enigma Variations

Bruch: Concerto for Violin in G minor

Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 5 “Reformation”

Perttu: Appalachian Vistas

Your Rock Hill Symphony Orchestra begins its eighth season with deeply connective and profound music, culminating in Felix Mendelssohn’s uplifting “Reformation” Symphony (No. 5). We also present guest violinist, William Shaub, in Bruch’s famous Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor and the Appalachian Vistas of American composer, Daniel Perttu.

Soloist William Shaub, Violinist

Violinist William Shaub was appointed Concertmaster of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra in May of 2017. Since his concerto debut with the Canton Symphony Orchestra at age 12, he has captivated audiences as a soloist, in recitals, and from the concertmaster chair. The winner of an inaugural Academy Fellowship with the New York Philharmonic and a graduate of the Juilliard School, he has been praised in the press as “a wonderful ambassador for music” (Cleveland Classical) and for performances "full of passion and energy, exquisitely rendered with refined details that escape one in recordings." He made his recital debut in New York as one of ten "Exceptional Young Artists" at the 2013 Starling-DeLay Symposium at Juilliard.

In demand around the world as an orchestral leader, William Shaub has served as Guest Concertmaster of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (U.K.), the Phoenix Symphony, the Jacksonville Symphony, and as concertmaster of renowned festival orchestras, including Spoleto and the Music Academy of the West. In 2023, he served an extended period as Guest Concertmaster of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, leading the NZSO on tours in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch. He has worked with many of the world’s most important conductors, with notable performances under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle, Alan Gilbert, Xian Zhang, and Nicholas Collon.

William Shaub's concerto appearances include performances with the orchestras of Brevard, Oak Ridge, Canton, Breckenridge, and in venues such as Carnegie Hall's Weill Hall, Severance Hall in Cleveland, Canada’s National Arts Centre, Seoul Arts Center, and Sanders Theatre at Harvard. He made his concerto debut as Concertmaster of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra in 2019 under the baton of conductor Mei-Ann Chen, performing Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. His solo performances of a vast repertoire for violin and orchestra have been heard on NPR Classical, Radio New Zealand, PBS, and BBC Radio 3.

His passionate commitment to chamber music includes performances at the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, Da Camera of Houston, and the Focus! Festival for contemporary music at Juilliard. He has performed at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center with members of the New York Philharmonic and enjoys collaborations with esteemed artists such as Jennifer Higdon, Robert Levin, Jon Kimura Parker, and Vadim Repin. He has also toured internationally as a member of the acclaimed chamber ensemble Sejong Soloists.

Born in 1992 in Canton, Ohio, William Shaub was a scholarship student at the Juilliard School, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees under the mentorship of Cho-Liang Lin and Masao Kawasaki. His formative influence was Emilio Llinas, his primary teacher. Other significant musical influences were Stephen Clapp, Sylvia Rosenberg, and Pinchas Zukerman. Prior to his appointment as concertmaster of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, he pursued an Artist Diploma at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music.

He performs on a violin made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, from 1865.

Daniel Perttu, Composer

Music has always been a kind of magic for composer Daniel Perttu, a portal to other realms. When he was young, he was inspired by fantasy novels such as The Lord of the Rings, and he is still drawn to myths and legends. He has written works on themes ranging from the planets, the sorcery of Merlin, and the Callanish Stone Circle, to the Torngat Mountains. His aim is to write music that invites audiences into other worlds, so they can re-discover their own sense of wonder.

Composers and writers whose works have influenced Perttu's music include Mahler, Shelley, Rautavaara, Barber, and Keats. Critic Lee Passarella notes the “modal strains [in Perttu’s music] that recall the works of . . . Ralph Vaughan Williams and Ernest Bloch” (Audiophile Audition).

Dan’s second piano concerto, A Planets Odyssey, has been characterized by critic Tom Wachunas as a “sensational non-stop trek across millions of miles” that “possesses an uncanny acuity for translating visual and tactile phenomena into palpable realities in themselves, endowing the work with a phantasmagorical dimensionality” (Artwach).

Dan’s recent overture, To Spring, is based on an ode of the same name by poet William Blake. Writing for The Whole Note, Tiina Kiik characterizes To Spring as being “majestic” and “lyrical.” And, in Textura, the authors describe To Spring as “vivid, multi-hued scene painting packed with orchestral detail [that] feels like a blossoming, whether it be of youth or the natural world, and a triumphant one at that.”

Dan’s music has been performed on four continents and in more than 40 of the United States. His concert opener Phoenix was released on a recording by the London Symphony Orchestra in October, 2022, and his Spring overture was recently recorded by the Moravian Philharmonic (Czech Republic). Both recordings are on the GRAMMY-winning Navona Records label, an imprint of PARMA Recordings.

His other international credits include performances by the Subotica Philharmonic and the Niš Symphony Orchestra (Serbia), and the Falcón Symphony Orchestra (Venezuela). In the States, his orchestral credits include the Wichita Symphony (Kansas), Toledo Symphony (Ohio), Western Piedmont Symphony (North Carolina), Eastern Connecticut Symphony, Wheeling Symphony (Ohio), Grand Junction Symphony (Colorado), Rapides Symphony (Louisiana), Butler County Symphony (Pennsylvania), Clinton Symphony (Illinois), Springfield Symphony (Ohio), Flagstaff Symphony (Arizona), Wheeling Symphony (West Virginia), Ohio Valley Symphony, Butler Philharmonic (Ohio), Sierra Vista Symphony (Arizona), Canton Symphony (Ohio), Muscatine Symphony (Iowa), Perrysburg Symphony (Ohio), Space Coast Symphony (Florida), Firelands Symphony (Ohio), Fox Valley Symphony (Wisconsin), Acadiana Symphony (Louisiana), Oklahoma Composers' Orchestra, Greenville Symphony (Pennsylvania), Orchestra Omaha, and Lakeland Civic Orchestra (Ohio).

Upcoming performances slated for the 2025-26 include the following orchestras: the Rock Hill Symphony (South Carolina), Canton Symphony (Ohio), Wichita Symphony (Kansas), Symphonicity (Virginia), Ocala Symphony (Florida), Austin Symphony (Texas), and Space Coast Symphony (Florida).

Although Dan always loved to compose, he was resistant to pursue composition as a career when he was young. As an undergraduate student, he hedged his bets by studying music and English. He also took numerous courses in psychology and neuroscience and even considered a career in law. When he was awarded a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship to study music in graduate school, he threw caution to the wind and decided to go “all in.” It worked. Upon graduating with his doctorate in composition, he took a position as a music professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and now teaches at Westminster College, where he is serving again as the chair of the School of Music, having previously been in that role for two terms from 2014 through 2022. He lives with his wife and two amazing daughters in Neshannock, Pennsylvania.