100+ Students and Community Members Will Play With Palm Beach Symphony

Led by Palm Beach Symphony Music Director and Conductor Gerard Schwarz, “The Encore” concert will conclude the Symphony's 2024-2025 Masterworks Series on Monday, May 19 at 7:30 p.m. at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach. 

In an exciting finish to the season, the Symphony will share the Dreyfoos Concert Hallstage side-by-side with approximately 110 middle and high school students, undergraduate and graduate students, music teachers and community members representing the following public and private schools, colleges, universities, conservatories and orchestras: American Heritage School Palm Beach, BAK Middle School of the Arts, Boca Raton Community High School, The Conservatory School of North Palm Beach, A.W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts, William T. Dwyer High School, A.D. Henderson University School & FAU High School, Gulliver Preparatory, Jupiter High School, The King's Academy, Lake Worth Community High School, John I. Leonard High School, Logger's Run Community Middle School, New World School of the Arts, North Broward Preparatory School, Palm Beach Central High School, Palm Beach Lakes High School, Park Vista Community High School, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Carnegie Mellon University, Edgewood College, Palm Beach Atlantic University, Stetson University, University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University of Miami, University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Alhambra Orchestra, Camerata di Magdalena, Century Village Orchestra, Florida Youth Orchestra, Broward Pops Orchestra, Indian River State College Wind Ensemble, Miami Lyric Opera Orchestra, North Palm Youth Symphony, Orchestra Del Ray, Orchid City Brass Band, Palm Beach Atlantic Symphonic Band, Palm Beach Gardens Concert Band, Palm Beach State Concert Band, Port St. Lucie Community Band, Sabor Latino (Latin Jazz), South Florida Chamber Orchestra, Sunrise Pops Orchestra, Symphonic Band of the Palm Beaches, Symphony of the Americas, Treasure Coast Youth Symphony, World Doctors Orchestra and Youth Orchestra of Palm Beach County.

Among those participating are five of Palm Beach Symphony's Lisa Bruna B-Major Award winners—2025 winners Thomas “Aidan” Gardner, flute, who will have graduated from the Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts earlier in the day of the Community Side-by-Side performance, and Alexander Rodriguez, euphonium, will have graduated from Palm Beach Central High School three days prior. In total, eight graduating high school seniors will be playing in this side-by-side. Additional Lisa Bruna B-Major Award winners include 2024 winner Arturo Dekle, French horn, now a student at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts; 2023 winner Bobbi Zimmelman, clarinet, now a student at Carnegie Mellon University; and 2022 winner Dion Sellitti, baritone saxophone who will play clarinet, now a student at Florida Atlantic University. All are currently or will be pursuing undergraduate music degrees.  

“We are so excited about this concert that unites our community in a grand celebration of 

orchestral music,” said Palm Beach Symphony CEO David McClymont. “This performance truly brings to life our mission to engage, educate and entertain the greater community. We encourage everyone to support our local musicians and at the same time enjoy a truly unique performance.”  

These intermediate and advanced level instrumentalists have the unique opportunity to play side-by-side with the Symphony's professional musicians performing Johannes Brahms' boisterous Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80, which celebrates the youthful pursuits of students over their academic duties. This overture, written in 1880, pays homage to University of Breslau, now called University of Wrocław, which awarded him an honorary doctorate degree.

Prior to the concert, guests will enjoy visiting with community organizations including Ballet Palm Beach, Benzaiten Center for Creative Arts, Cox Science Center and Aquarium, Norton Museum of Art, Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens, Palm Beach Dramaworks and West Palm Beach Library Foundation that will be set up in the Kravis Center lobby to share information about how to engage with their programs.

Thanks to the generous sponsorship of Park Foundation, Patrick and Milly Park, “The Encore” will also feature pianistKevin Kenner who will celebrate his 62nd birthday with a performance of Frédéric Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor, Op. 21. 

“We're grateful to Patrick Park for enabling us to do this seventh concert with his close friend Kevin Kenner, a remarkable pianist especially known for playing Chopin,” said Maestro Schwarz. “It's a difficult piece to conduct because the soloist plays with great freedom, and you must find your way. The music is so beautiful and glorious. I'm very much looking forward to the challenge.”

Proclaimed by The Washington Post as "a major talent … an artist whose intellect, imagination and pianism speak powerfully and eloquently," Kenner was the top prize winner in the 1990 Chopin Competition in Warsaw and was awarded top prizes in the Tchaikovsky Competition and the Terrance Judd Competition, among others. He has performed as a soloist with world-class orchestras including the Hallé Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Czech Philharmonic, the Belgian Radio and Television Philharmonic Brussels, the NHK Symphony of Japan and in the U.S. with the principal orchestras of San Francisco, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Kansas City, New Jersey, Rochester, Baltimore, St. Paul and many others. A distinguished recording artist, he has had his interpretations of works by Paderewski and Chopin picked as recordings of the month by Gramophone magazine. After teaching for more than a decade at London's Royal College of Music, Kenner accepted a post at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami where he is also artistic director and founder of the Frost Chopin Academy, an annual summer academy that directly connects talented students of Chopin's music with some of the world's most respected Chopin specialists.

The evening will culminate with Ludwig van Beethoven's landmark Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67, written in 1808. There are few pieces of music easily recognized by the first few notes, but this symphony is one of those select few when it opens with the famous “bum, bum, bum, bum.”