School of Fine and Performing Arts

Orchestras

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As a major component of a balanced curriculum of music performance, applied music, music history, music theory, and music education, the School of Fine and Performing Arts offers a wide range of performing ensembles.

These ensembles are open to all students at the university, regardless of major, and, in some cases, to community members.

Chamber Orchestra

Chamber Orchestra (MUE 2770/4770/6770)
Jackson Leung, D.M.A., conductor

The Chamber Orchestra has been Wright State University's premier orchestra for more than two decades.  A unique performing ensemble comprised of faculty and students, the orchestra provides students an opportunity to perform side by side with their mentors. Under the direction of Dr. Jackson Leung since 1995, the Chamber Orchestra has distinguished itself with outstanding performances of music from Bach, Handel, Beethoven, and Schubert to Ravel, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, and Piazzolla.

Performances have led the Chamber Orchestra in concerts statewide, including invitations to perform at many Ohio Music Education Association Professional Conferences in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Dayton. The orchestra has appeared in performances throughout the Miami Valley, including performances at the Schuster Performing Arts Center, Dayton Arts Institute, Corbett Auditorium at CCM and has been heard in radio broadcasts on classical radio WGUC, Cincinnati.

The orchestra has collaborated with such eminent artists as pianists Menahem Pressler, Sergei Babayan, Michael Lewin, Ralph Votapek, Alan Chow, Cheng-Zhong Yin, Leon Bates; singers Alfreda Burke, and Rodrick Dixon, cellist David Hardy of the National Symphony of Washington, D.C.; clarinetists Stanley Drucker of the New York Philharmonic and Larry Combs of the Chicago Symphony; horn soloist David Jolley of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; as well as the Ahn Trio. In 2006, the Chamber Orchestra performed at the Cultural Centers of Hong Kong and Macau as part of the ensemble's international tour.


University Symphony Orchestra

University Symphony Orchestra (MUE 2700/4700/6700)
In-Hong Cha, D.M.A., conductor

The Wright State University Symphony Orchestra has been continuously active in the Miami Valley of Ohio since 1966. It draws its members from the entire Dayton community, including university students, faculty, and other area musicians. The orchestra studies and performs a large repertoire of classical music from the Baroque to the Twenty-first Century. It also performs regularly with distinguished guest artists, choral ensembles, and outstanding student musicians selected in annual competition.

Under the guidance of the current music director and conductor, Dr. In-Hong Cha, the orchestra has performed such works as Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Copeland’s Appalachian Spring, Rimski-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, Elgar’s Enigma Variations, and symphonies by Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Schubert, Dvorak, Haydn, Hanson, and William Grant Still.

While an audition is required for new members, all levels of experience and facility are welcome. For further information or to schedule an audition, please contact Dr. Cha by email.

 


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