NEWS RELEASE

Contact: David West (west@nsula.edu )
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466

10/2/2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NATCHITOCHES -Two Northwestern State faculty who have received national and international acclaim for their performances will be featured with the Natchitoches-Northwestern Symphony Orchestra Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in Magale Recital Hall. Tickets are $10. NSU and Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts students are admitted free with I.D.

The orchestra, conducted by Dr. Douglas Bakenhus, will perform Orchestral Suite No. 2 by J.S. Bach, featuring Dr. Dennette McDermott, Symphony No. 8 (Unfinished) by Franz Schubert and Concerto No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra by Dmitri Shostakovich featuring Fitenko. McDermott is a professor of flute at Northwestern. Fitenko is an assistant professor of piano.

Fitenko has performed recitals and with orchestras in the former Soviet Union, Europe, Asia, and South and North America. A native of St. Petersburg, Russia, Fitenko graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory with a citation for excellence given to only five other graduates in the last 50 years.

"It is quite appropriate to honor Shostakovich in this way. The entire music world is celebrating the centennial of his birth and I am glad we are taking part," he said. "Many consider the second concerto to be less difficult than the first, but I disagree. It is extremely difficult and exhausting. The first movement does not have a single break. I feel like the Energizer Bunny when I play it. This work requires a pianist to show all that he has."

According to Fitenko, the mood of the first movement is "youthful, uplifting and cheerful." He says the second movement is contrasting because of the emotions that evolve and is comparable to the Moonlight Sonata.

"The concerto can also be a great challenge for the orchestra," said Fitenko. "Dr. Bakenhus has brought the orchestra to a new level and I have no doubt that they will do a great job."

Fitenko said Shostakovich was the last of the great Russian composers in the line of Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev and others.

"There have been big names in Russian music but no great ones," said Fitenko. "He lived in Soviet Russia, so he was told how to compose. If he did not comply, he faced being sent to prison or to Siberia. He had to learn to play the game, but at times his work could be sarcastic as he made fun of things."

McDermott has performed throughout the United States and in Europe. She made her European debut in 1992 in the Czech Republic with the Czech premiere of Feld's "Introduzione, Toccata e Fuga." In 1995, as a recipient of the Magale Endowed Professorship, she participated in a master course and taught at the Janacek Academie of Music in Brno, Czech Republic. She was the organizer of the first Slovak Flute Festival in the Slovak Republic. McDermott received the Mildred Hart Bailey Research Award at NSU. She is a three-time winner of the National Flute Association Conventions' Performers Competition.

McDermott said the work she will perform was the only orchestral suite written by Bach for flute.

"It was written for a flute with one key, so it was composed for a different instrument," she said. "Bach has no mercy on the performer. He was demanding by writing exactly what he wanted performed. You have to be precise so you can have time to breathe."

Because of the changes in musical instruments over time, McDermott said the first 10 minutes of the suite might seem unusual to the audience.

"For the first 10 minutes, no one will be able to hear me," she said. "In Bach's time, they used smaller orchestras, so the flute could be heard."

McDermott said this work is a great challenge for a flutist.

"Many artists will not perform this piece because of the challenges," she said. "There is nothing like this in the flute repertoire and I am happy to have had a chance to learn and appreciate this work."

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