David Alexander Rahbee and the UW Symphony present "Hungarian Connections," a program of music by Leó Weiner, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Bela Bartók. With faculty artist Pala Garcia, violin.
Program
“Hungarian Connections”
Leó Weiner: Prince Csongor and the Goblins: Introduction & Scherzo
Ludwig van Beethoven: Romance No.2 in F major for violin and orchestra, op.50
Bela Bartók: Rhapsody No.2 for violin and orchestra
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No.7 in A major, op.92
Biographies
Pala Garcia is a critically acclaimed violinist recently named a 2024 National Arts Club Fellow. She was also featured as a leading innovative artist in the Washington Post’s “23 for ’23: Performers and Composers to Watch.” Garcia previously served on the faculty of The Juilliard School’s Preparatory Division, on the violin and chamber music faculty of Hunter College, and as a teaching artist with Carnegie Hall’s social impact programs.
Alongside spouse John Popham, Garcia is a member, co-founder, and co-director of the chamber trio Longleash, which specializes in commissioning, performing and curating contemporary music. Their trio has performed internationally at venues such as the TIME:SPANS Festival, Kennedy Center, Kaufman Center, Noguchi Museum, National Sawdust, EMPAC, Princeton University, and others. The trio’s discography can be heard on New Focus Recordings, Innova, and New Amsterdam Records. Garcia has also appeared as a regular guest with world-class ensembles including the International Contemporary Ensemble, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and on stages such as Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Guggenheim Museum, Met Museum, Skirball Center, Caramoor, and others.
Garcia received undergraduate and graduate degrees from The Juilliard School. She was also a Senior Teaching Fellow at The Graduate Center, CUNY, and an Academy Fellow with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.
David Alexander Rahbee is an Associate Professor at the University of Washington School of Music, where he is Director of Orchestral Activities and Chair of Orchestral Conducting. He is Music Director and Conductor of the University of Washington Symphony Orchestra and founder of the Campus Philharmonia Orchestras. He is a recipient of the American-Austrian Foundation's 2003 Herbert von Karajan Fellowship for Young Conductors, the 2005 International Richard-Wagner-Verband Stipend, a fellowship the Acanthes Centre in Paris (2007), and is first prize winner in conducting from The American Prize national non-profit competitions in the performing arts for 2020. His work at UW has earned national recognition. In 2021 he was praised by The American Prize as “Consistently one of the most courageous and comprehensive [orchestral] programmers working in higher education in the U.S. today…”
Dr. Rahbee has appeared in concert with orchestras such as the Seattle Symphony, RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Kammerphilharmonie Berlin-Brandenburg, Guernsey Symphony Orchestra, Chattanooga Symphony, Bellingham Symphony, National Chamber Orchestra of Armenia, Orchestre de la Francophonie, the Boston New Music Initiative, Seattle Modern Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Loja, Cool Opera of Norway, Schönbrunner Schloss Orchester and the Divertimento Ensemble of Milan. His collaborations with the Seattle Symphony include assistant conductor for the performance and recording of Ives’ Fourth Symphony, and as guest conductor for their Native Lands project and the North American premiere of Páll Ragnar Pallson's Quake. He has collaborated with several prominent soloists such as Sarah Chang, Michelle Cann, Jon Kimura Parker and Jonathan Biss. He has taught at the Pierre Monteux School, as has conducted at a number of summer festivals such as the Atlantic Music Festival, Sewanee Music Center, Bar Harbor Music Festival and Hawaii Performing Arts Festival.
Dr. Rahbee was an assistant at the Vienna State opera from 2002-2010. As part of his fellowship and residency at the 2003 Salzburg Festival, where he worked with members of the Vienna Philharmonic. Masterclasses with prominent conductors such as Kurt Masur, Sir Colin Davis, Jorma Panula, Zdeněk Mácal, Peter Eötvös, Zoltán Peskó and Helmut Rilling, and counts Nikolaus Harnoncourt to be among his most influential mentors.
Dr. Rahbeeʼs principal conducting teachers were Charles Bruck and Michael Jinbo at the Pierre Monteux School. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree in violin and composition from Indiana University, a Master of Music degree from the New England Conservatory in orchestral conducting, and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Montreal in orchestral conducting. He has also participated in post-graduate conducting classes at the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, Vienna. His orchestrations of music by Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Ravel, Debussy and others are published by LeDor; his brass arrangements and an original composition are published by Warwick Music, and his articles on the music of Gustav Mahler have appeared in journals of the International Gustav Mahler Gesellschaft, among others.
In addition to being awarded first prize in conducting from The American Prize for 2020, he was awarded 2nd place in 2019. He has also placed among winners for five consecutive years for The American Prize Vytautas Marijosius Memorial Award for Orchestral Programming, recognizing his programming with the UW Symphony and its affiliated ensembles for every season since he joined the faculty. The UWSO has also been a finalist in the category of orchestral performance in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
Dr. Rahbee is co-editor of Daniels’ Orchestral Music (6thedition) and Daniels’ Orchestral Music Online (DOMO), the gold standard among conductors, orchestral administrators, orchestra librarians as well as other music professionals and students researching for orchestral programming.