Annual All-Star Evening Set for Abravanel Hall, 5/20

Associate Conductor Vladimir Kulenovic leads excellent high school instrumentalists from 11 youth orchestras as they play side-by-side with their professional mentors from the Utah Symphony. The All-Star Evening-a yearly Abravanel Hall event-takes place on May 20, 2014 at 7:00 PM.

Featured in this program, playing an entire concerto, is 18-year-old flutist Catherine Winters. Ms. Winters has studied flute since age six and currently studies with Dr. Elizabeth Weissman. She has soloed twice before with the Utah Symphony and she will be playing Lowell Lieberman's Flute Concerto for this performance.

Also on the program are Bedrich Smetana's Overture to The Bartered Bride, Johannes Brahms's Academic Festival Overture, Sergei Prokofiev's March from Love for Three Oranges and Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italien.

Single tickets for the performance start at $6 and can be purchased by phone at (801) 355-2787, in person at the Abravanel Hall ticket office (125 W. South Temple) or online by visiting www.utahsymphony.org. Season subscribers can purchase discounted tickets by contacting (801) 533-6683. Those desiring group discounts should call (801) 869-9046. All ticket prices are subject to change and availability, and will increase $5 when purchased on the day of the performance.

Since his professional conducting debut in 2006 with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Canada, Kulenovic has conducted performances with the Verbier Festival Orchestra, Beethoven-Orchester Bonn, Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss am Rhein, Aspen Music Festival AACA Orchestra, New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra, Indian Hill Orchestra, Connecticut Valley Chamber Orchestra, Juilliard Conductors' Orchestra, Manhattan School of Music Symphony Orchestra, Peabody Institute Symphony Orchestra and Boston Conservatory Orchestra.

Kulenovic studied with Kurt Masur at the Kurt Masur Conducting Seminar in New York in 2008 and 2009, as well as at the Beethoven-Orchester Bonn and the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, where his final performance with the Verbier Festival Orchestra was internationally televised on Medici TV. Kulenovic spent the summer of 2010 as a conducting fellow at the Aspen Music Festival, and has also conducted in other prestigious music festivals worldwide, including the National Arts Centre Conducting Programme, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and the Mozarteum Internationale Sommerakademie in Salzburg.

Catherine Winters has studied flute since age six and currently studies with Dr. Elizabeth Weissman. She has soloed twice before with the Utah Symphony on the Salute to Youth concerts, twice with the Utah Valley Symphony, and with the American Fork Symphony. Last August, Catherine won first place in the National Flute Association's High School Soloist Competition. She has won three other national competitions as well: MTNA Senior Woodwind Performance Competition (2012), MTNA Junior Woodwind Performance Competition (2009), and the Stillman-Kelly competition (2011) sponsored by the National Federation of Music Clubs. Catherine has won first place in the Utah State Fair Competition, is a three-time winner of the UMTA Concerto Competition, and a multiple first place winner in Utah Flute Association's sonata and concerto competitions. She also plays the piano and sings. Catherine teaches private flute and piano, and she taught orchestra at an elementary school for several years. Catherine loves to run cross country, create beautiful things, and be with her friends. She is the daughter of Alan and Jill Winters of Lindon, Utah.