Highland Park Strings Holiday Concert to feature Susan Merdinger

Susan Merdinger to perform and conduct the Highland Park Strings in a Mostly Mozart

 Holiday Concert

Sunday, December 3, 2023, 3:00 PM

Highland Park High School Performing Arts Center 433 Vine Avenue, Highland Park, IL 60035

Admission is Free and Open to the Public

Highland Park, IL  --The Highland Park Strings is pleased to announce its “Holiday” concert of the 45th Season featuring pianist and conductor, Susan Merdinger, and conductor Bill Baar. 

The concert program will include Corelli’s Concerto Grosso Op. 6 No. 8,  “Christmas Concerto”, Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550, and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K. 503 and it is free and open to the public. 

The Highland Park Strings is an ensemble based in Highland Park, IL, and founded by the cellist and distinguished attorney, Lawrence Block. Now in its 45th season, the Highland Park Strings can proudly say it has served the community with free concerts featuring both seasoned artists as well as young aspiring artists, in diverse repertoire for strings and full symphonic orchestra. “Continually reinventing itself is what keeps the Highland Park Strings new, fresh and exciting each season,” states Block. Some of the previous conductors included CSO Violinist, Francis Akos, Francesco Milioto, Robert Hasty and now the new Principal Conductor, Dr. Allan Dennis. The first half of this concert will be conducted by distinguished educator, violinist and conductor, Bill Baar, while the second half of the concert will feature the piano concerto.

Steinway Artist Susan Merdinger will be leading the Highland Park Strings from the piano as she and the HP Strings perform Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K. 503. Merdinger has enjoyed a distinguished career as a concert pianist, but few people are familiar with her orchestral conducting talents- first nurtured when she was an undergraduate and graduate student at Yale, under the tutelage of Robert Kapilow, Otto Werner Mueller, and Seymour Lipkin. “I always dreamt of being a conductor- since I have always thought about the piano in terms of orchestral colors and sounds, and I thoroughly enjoy collaborating with members of an orchestra”, explains Merdinger from her home studio in Fort Sheridan, Illinois. “I also enjoyed many years in a youth orchestra playing the flute, piano and celeste, which was a formative experience for me that continued while at Yale”.  However, while it was difficult enough to be a female pianist in the earliest years of her career- Susan happily chose to focus on performing as a soloist and chamber musician- her primary passion! “At a certain point, however,  I began to realize how much I love being enveloped in symphonic sounds and the enormous repertoire that an orchestra offers. The gender barriers seem to be falling away for female conductors- thus, I am continually seeking out more opportunities to conduct orchestras in some of my favorite symphonic repertoire. Much of my orchestral repertoire I learned in my 30 year career as a duo-pianist performing orchestral transcriptions and arrangements such as Stravinsky’s “Petrouchka”, Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, or Brahms’ Haydn Variations, for example,” explains Ms. Merdinger. “However, keeping an ensemble of two, three or four people together is entirely different than keeping an orchestra of 40-60 people in sync”! This performance will be Merdinger’s first-ever performance of a piano concerto conducted by her from the piano, and it is a challenge she and the Highland Park Strings are very excited about, as it is as demanding of the orchestra as it is of the pianist/conductor!

There are two remaining concerts in the Highland Park Strings concert season in February and May.

For more information please visit: http://highlandparkstrings.org/pgs/december.html

Press Contact:

Lawrence Block, Founder, Cellist, and General Manager

847-831-3622

lawrenceblock100@gmail.com