Jazz Concert in Chase Park and Festival Orchestra Concert in Purchase

The Hoff-Barthelson Music School Jazz Department will present its final jazz ensemble performances of the year on Sunday, June 3 at 6 pm in Scarsdale’s Chase Park. The outdoor concert is always a big hit with local residents and members of the school community.

The program, under the direction of Ed Palermo, Coordinator of the Jazz Studies Program, is entitled All That Jazz, and will feature several of the Music School’s smokin’ student jazz ensembles. The ensembles will perform a delightful cross-section of American jazz standards as well as pieces composed and arranged by the students and faculty. They will be joined by jazz faculty members in a variety of jazz combos.

The public is invited to picnic and relax in the park while the ensembles perform.

Festival Orchestra at Purchase

On Saturday June 2nd, the HB Festival Orchestra will present its Finale Concert of the season in the Recital Hall, Purchase Theatres, 735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, on Saturday, June 2 at 7 pm with internationally celebrated guest pianist, Orli Shaham.

The Festival Orchestra, a full symphonic ensemble, has been lauded as one of the finest high school orchestras in the United States by the New York State Council on the Arts. The Festival Orchestra presents five full symphonic concerts each year, of which two concerts are performed with guest artists of international stature. The Music School uses an Orchestral Training Pyramid unique in substance, structure and quality to guide young orchestral players through increasingly rigorous ensemble training, until they are ready to audition for seats in the top-level Festival Orchestra.

At the June 2 concert the Festival Orchestra, under the direction of Jun Nakabayashi, will be joined in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor by pianist Orli Shaham. The Festival Orchestra will also play Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture and Michael Valenti and Ron Spivak’s The Noisy Intermission, for which Mr. Spivak will make a guest appearance as the narrator.

A consummate musician recognized for her grace and vitality, Orli Shaham has established an impressive international reputation as one of today's most gifted pianists. She has performed with most major American orchestras, as well as with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Filarmonica della Scala, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Stockholm Philharmonic and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and is a frequent guest at numerous summer festivals from Mostly Mozart to Verbier. Her recital venues include Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, and Amsterdam's Concertgebouw.

In 2011-2012 Ms. Shaham will premiere a piano concerto written for her by Steven Mackey, with David Robertson conducting the St. Louis Symphony. Her newest recordings include a CD of Hebrew Melodies with her brother, the violinist Gil Shaham; the Brahms Horn Trio; Schubert’s lied Auf dem Strom featuring Richard King; and Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals with pianist Jon Kimura Parker and the San Diego Symphony. She hosts the two-hour weekly public radio series America’s Music Festivals, which is broadcast on more than 100 stations.

Ms. Shaham’s highly acclaimed classical concert series for young children, Baby Got Bach, provides hands-on activities with musical instruments and concepts and concert performances that promote good listening skills. She has taught music literature at Columbia University, and contributed articles to Piano Today, Symphony, and Playbill Magazines. Ms. Shaham has served as artist in residence on National Public Radio’s Performance Today.

Ron Spivak wrote, directed, and has performed — as narrator and singer — his symphonic concerts Bravo to Broadway and Richard Rodgers Re-vued with major orchestras across the country, and has sung with Steve Ross, Julie Wilson and other luminaries at Lincoln Center. He has played leading roles in Man of La Mancha, Guys & Dolls, Company, Damn Yankees, Annie, Godspell, Little Mary Sunshine, Gilbert & Sullivan's Ruddigore, The Mad Show and Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. He co-starred with Andrea McArdle, Loni Ackerman, and Neva Small in the Off-Broadway revival of the musical Promenade. His directing credits include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Man of La Mancha, Company, Next, The Bald Soprano and The Lesson.

At Samuel French play publishers, Mr. Spivak prepared the published scripts and scores for more than 50 musicals, including La Cage aux Folles, Woman of the Year, Little Shop of Horrors, and Dames at Sea, and also unearthed and cataloged the long-lost scripts and orchestrations to more than two dozen early Broadway musicals, including the Gershwins’ original version of Of Thee I Sing, which led to CBS’s acclaimed recording conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. He has composed historical “liner” notes for Broadway cast albums, and has written for Show Music and Where New York magazines, among others.

Tickets will be sold at the door and are $13 general; $11 seniors; $5 for students under 16. Inquiries about the Music School may be directed to hb@hbms.org, www.hbms.org or 914-723-1169.