Randolph College Chamber Orchestra holds first solo concert Dec. 6

The Randolph College Chamber Orchestra will present its first solo concert this week, featuring six works from five composers, including Haydn and Brahms.

The orchestra was formed in the spring of 2012, and currently includes eight students who perform in concerts with professional musicians. In past years, the orchestra has performed along with Chorale, but it has developed enough to have its own concert.

The concert will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, December 6, in Smith Hall Theatre. The repertoire will include “hidden gems to well-known treasures,” said Randall Speer, director of the chamber orchestra and a Randolph College music professor. The works include Notturno in C by Franz Joseph Haydn and Fantasia on “Greensleeves” by British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.

In addition to the Randolph students, the chamber orchestra includes two students from E.C. Glass High School in Lynchburg.

“It is truly an honor to lead this fine group of students,” Speer said. “My deepest gratitude is extended to Randolph College for its truly remarkable support in bravely establishing a chamber orchestra as part of our curriculum.”

Randolph concert airs on Virginia radio station this weekend

Randolph College’s spring choir and orchestra concert will hit Virginia airwaves this weekend.

Classics Radio (91.7 FM in Lynchburg, 89.5 in Fredericksburg) will play highlights from the concert at 9 a.m. Friday, followed by replays at noon and 5 p.m. Saturday and noon Sunday.

The April concert featured Mozart’s Solemn Vespers and Randall Thompson’s The Place of the Blest performed by the Randolph College Chorale and Chamber Orchestra along with the Lynchburg Symphony Orchestra. Randall Speer, Randolph music professor, conducted the concert. Classics Radio coordinated with the Randolph music department to record the concert.

Solemn Vespers is the piece that Chorale sang in Carnegie Hall this spring.