Roger Zahab, Director
Information on the University of Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for 2023/24 academic year
Symphony Orchestra and Auditions
[revised August 8, 2023]
The University of Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is composed of both music majors and non-music majors who have a strong devotion to music. Our level of performance improves substantially every year and all skilled musicians from throughout the University (students, faculty and staff) are welcome as well as people from the general community.
The orchestra is offered as a 1 credit course called University Orchestra - Music 0620. A successful audition is required for the permission code to register for the course, as it is to join the orchestra without registration for the course.
Our scheduled time for rehearsals (and concerts) in Bellefield Hall Auditorium on Wednesdays from 7:30 pm until around 9:50 pm. Additional sectionals or individual coaching sessions can be held virtually through Zoom or FaceTime as needed. In our concerts we play a wide range of music from the Baroque period to the very latest music and support the activities of other areas in the Pitt Music Department, especially new music composition/performance and (increasingly) interdisciplinary studies.
Individual coaching for players to support their success in performing difficult repertoire will be offered throughout the year. Registered students are encouraged to form groups with friends for chamber music practice in sight-reading, coaching and, if the group so desires, eventually, a performance.
All music department activities are open to Pitt students whether they are music majors or not. Please check out our department here: https://www.music.pitt.edu/performance-and-lecture-series/performance-and-lecture-series
Auditions are typically done virtually by means of an unedited video recording which should be sent to Roger Zahab (rzahab@pitt.edu) by the week before classes begin for the semester you wish to play in:
Please prepare two examples of solo music for your instrument composed AFTER 1850 up to the present. They don't have to be complete pieces but should use most of the available range of the instrument, and demonstrate your intonation, rhythmic skills, and ability to perform contrasting styles of music in phrasing and tone production.
Average “student repertoire” won’t reveal the advanced technique you need for our usual orchestral repertoire, so please no Baroque or Classical music.
Please contact Roger for the orchestral excerpts for your instrument selected from major works by Beethoven through Copland, Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky.
- please contact me (Roger Zahab) at rzahab@pitt.edu if you have any more questions on what to prepare.
Email is best.
All performances in Bellefield Hall Auditorium, soundchecks are now at 7:00pm, Concert at 8 pm
Concert dates for 2023/24:
Leonard Bernstein: Overture to Candide
Dirje Childs: Memory, Love & Loss (2022) for brass quintet with video
W A Mozart Concerto for Horn, K 447
Megumi Barclay, horn (student soloist)
Roberto Gerhard: Don Quixote Dances (1958)
December 6, 2023
Elizabeth Brown Lost Waltz (1997)
Tchaikovsky no 6 Pathetique (in memoriam Ben Franks-Meinert)
Other works tbd
February 21, 2024
William Grant Still – Wood Notes
Witold Lutoslawski – Cello Concerto with David Russell, guest artist
April 17, 2024
Sergei Rachmaninov – Third Piano Concerto with Nikolai Choubine, faculty artist
Claude Debussy – La Mer
At some point a new work by Naama Perel
Links to the orchestra’s recent video performances
John Williams - Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Soundtrack Suite (Episode VII)
Giacomo Puccini – Intermezzo (from Manon Lescaut)
Recondita armonia (from Tosca, Act I)
Robert Frankenberry, tenor soloist
Kerrith Livengood – The Land Vaguely Waving (2012)
Jean Sibelius - Symphony no. 2 in D major, op. 43
Antonin Dvorak – Carneval Overture, op 92
Burkhardt Reiter - Filling Adam’s Glass (2003)
Juwon Adenuga – Àrè – The Sojourner (2023, premiere)
Seymour Barab – Quartet for B flat clarinets
Franz Schubert - Symphony no. 1 in D, D 82 – conducted by Emanuel Berrido
Ludwig Göransson – Star Wars: The Mandalorian
Emmanuel Berrido, conductor
Myroslav Skoryk – Melody (arranged for flute, oboe, clarinet and strings)
Julia Kebuladze, violin soloist
Jan Rösner - For Shakuhachi and String Orchestra (2019)
Devon Osamu Tipp, shakuhachi
Tison Street – Fantasia for six cellos (1988)
Robert Schumann - Symphony no. 3 in E flat, op. 97 “Rhenish”
Gilda Lyons – La Novia de Tola (2013)
Gustav Mahler – Adagietto (from the Fifth Symphony)
Saint-Saens - Third Concerto for Violin
Matthew Alford, violin
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Symphony no. 40 in g minor, K 550
April 20, 2022
State Anthem of Ukraine – “Ukraine has not yet perished”
Mykhailo Verbytsky, Arr. Marek Toporovsky
Circular Dancing (1995/2000, 2022 version)
Roger Zahab
Concerto in b minor for solo cello and orchestra, op. 104 (1895)
Antonin Dvořák – Alicia Loui, solo cello
Black On White (2005)
Alastair Stout, Roger Zahab, conductor
Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture (1869/70)
Pyotr Ilitch Tchaikovsky, Cullyn D. Murphy, conductor
February 23, 2022
Sibelius: Finlandia
First performance of Julia Perry’s Concerto for violin and orchestra, Cullyn D. Murphy conducting
Max Bruch: Romance, op. 85 for sola viola and orchestra, Elyssa Allen, soloist
Franz Schubert: “Unfinished” Symphony no. 8 (or 7), Roger Zahab, conducting
From Spring 2021
Alberto Nepomuceno: Batuque (from Brazilian Suite)
Judith Weir: Sinfonia Comatica
Edvard Grieg: Praeludium (from Holberg Suite)
John Cage: Living Room Music
John Cage: Amores (III)
a m | roger zahab – each solo was individually crafted for the player and placed in strange harmonic contexts to convey the idea of a city teaming with a great diversity of people coming to life.
From Fall 2020
Julia Perry: Prelude for strings
Perry wrote this for piano in 1946 and revised it in 1962. In the 1980s I found a copy of her manuscript in the American Music Center. Under the title she had written “[arrangement for string orchestra available]” but I have never been able to locate it. I made this arrangement for the University of Pittsburgh Orchestra in August 2020 in her honor.
Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300-1377): Veni, creator spiritus
Machaut originally wrote this isorhythmic motet for four voices perhaps around 1359. I revised my earlier arrangement this work for the University of Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in August 2020.
G. F. Handel – Hornpipes in F and in D, from the Water Music
The University of Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Instigator – Roger Zahab
Previous adventures
Dvorak: New World 1st movement
Satie: Trois gnossiennes
Mozart: Jupiter Symphony, 1st movement
Tchaikovsky: Serenade in C major for strings 1 mvt
Stravinsky: Rite of Spring (arr. Kennedy)
For concert information, call 412-624-4125, or visit our Events Calendar.