David Bernard to Conduct Massapequa Philharmonic, 3/21

The noted American conductor David Bernard will lead an exciting program of Weber, Tchaikovsky, and Sibelius with the Massapequa Philharmonic on Saturday evening, March 21, 2014, 8 pm at the Berner Auditorium, 50 Carman Mill Road, Massapequa, NY 11758. The following is the complete program:

Carl Maria von Weber: Overture to Der Freischütz

Tchaikovsky: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D Major, Op. 35

Ryu Goto, violin

Sibelius: Symphony No.2 in D Major

This concert is free and open to the public. For further information, please visit http://massphil.org/.

Conductor David Bernard, Music Director and founder of New York City's Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, has gained recognition for his dramatic and incisive conducting in over 20 countries on four continents, including a nine-city tour of the People's Republic of China and a guest conducting assignment with the China Conservatory Orchestra.

Maestro Bernard recently led the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony at the Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall, Time Warner Center in New York City on February 22, 2015 in an ambitious program of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps and the Wagner/Maazel The Ring Without Words, which drew the following superlatives from Alan Young of Lucid Culture (February 24, 2015):

Anyone who experienced Stravinsky's Rite of Spring for the first time in concert Sunday at the Rose Theatre at Jazz at Lincoln Center is spoiled for life. Conducting from memory, David Bernard led a transcendent performance of The Rite of Spring with intensity, passion and fervor. Segues were seamless, contrasts were vivid and Stravinsky's whirling exchanges of voices were expertly choreographed.

And from Paul Pelkonen, reviewing the concert for SuperConductor, (February 24, 2015) these words of praise:

For this concert, music director David Bernard assembled a large and ambitious program. The performance showed the benefits of considerable preparation. The Ritehad poetry and meaning, managing the proto-jazz changes in the score and the challenging, delicate passages that alternate with the grinding fortissimi, building a dark, memorable crescendo around the rising chords that indicate the procession of the ancients, and blasting through the thunderous Final Dance and Sacrifice in powerful fashion. That energy carried into the Ride of the Valkyries and a performance of Wotan's Farewell that had real poetry with Mr. Bernard relishing each bar of the famous final chords.

Active throughout the greater New York City area, Maestro Bernard has appeared as a guest conductor with the Long Island String Festival, the Massapequa Philharmonic, the New York Symphonic Arts Ensemble, the Putnam Symphony and the South Shore Symphony. Mr. Bernard has previously served as Music Director of the Stony Brook University Orchestra, the Gilbert and Sullivan Light Opera Company of Long Island, and Theater Three. Previously Bernard held the post of Assistant Conductor of both the Jacksonville and Stamford symphony orchestras.

A two-time First Prize Winner of the Orchestral Conducting Competition of The American Prize, David Bernard was described by the judges as "a first rate conductor. With no score, an animated and present Maestro Bernard led a phenomenal performance of incredibly difficult repertoire-masterly in shaping, phrasing, technique and expressivity". A reading of Richard Strauss's Tod und Verklärung brought high praise from Lucid Culture which found the performance to be "unsurpassed in its dynamic range and attention to detail."

Devoted to the music of our own time, Bernard has presented world premières of scores by Bruce Adolphe, Chris Caswell, John Mackey, and Ted Rosenthal, while distinguished concert collaborators include Carter Brey, David Chan, Catherine Cho, Pedro Díaz, Stanley Drucker, Bart Feller, Whoopi Goldberg, Sirena Huang, Judith Ingolfsson, Christina Jennings, Anna Lee, Jessica Lee, Kristin Lee, Jon Manasse, Spencer Myer, Todd Phillips, and James Archie Worley.

Maestro Bernard's discography includes 17 albums spanning music from Vivaldi to Copland, including a complete Beethoven symphony cycle praised for its "intensity, spontaneity, propulsive rhythm, textural clarity, dynamic control, and well-judged phrasing" (Fanfare). About his release of 20th century orchestral music by Copland, Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams, and Bartók Fanfare Magazine wrote:

David Bernard is an exceptional conductor... His performances are marked by a strong sense of the music's structure, an outstanding feeling for orchestral texture and phrasing, and a dynamic rhythmic propulsion that makes itself felt even in quiet passages. (July 2014)

Maestro Bernard is passionately committed to elementary and secondary school music education, continuously developing new talent and providing solo performance experience to exciting young artists. His leadership in fundraising for music education programs has bolstered outreach, community music schools and conservatory preparatory programs-most notably the Harmony Program (a New York City initiative modeled after Venezuela's "El Sistema") and the Lucy Moses School. Mr. Bernard and the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony have also established the Parent's Association Endowed Scholarship Fund at The Juilliard School Pre-College Division.

David Bernard is an alumnus of The Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of Music, Stony Brook University, Tanglewood, and Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

Violin guest soloist Ryu Goto has performed internationally as a soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra, Orpheus, Shanghai Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Toscanini Symphonica in Italy, New Zealand Symphony, Bamberg Symphony, New Symphony Orchestra (Bulgaria,) the European Union Youth Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra of South Africa.

For further information, please contact Hemsing Associates at 212-772-1132 or visit www.hemsingpr.com