Guest Conductor for Humboldt Symphony 

Humboldt Symphony hosts a guest conductor and guest pianist to join HSU pianist Daniela Mineva on Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos on Friday evening May 8 and Sunday afternoon May 10 in Fulkerson Recital Hall. 

 Guest conductor Anna Binneweg is music director and conductor of the Londontowne Symphony Orchestra and the Anne Arundel Community College Symphony, where she teaches. Both are in Maryland. She has conducted at the Kennedy Center in Washington and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, among other prestigious venues. The Baltimore Sun called her “a rising national star.” 

 “We’re excited to have Anna here to conduct and to work with our student in the week leading up to the concerts,” said Humboldt Symphony director Paul Cummings. “Daniela Mineva knows her as a colleague from Michigan State, and she is also a colleague of mine—we’ve both served as officers of the College Orchestra Directors Association.” 

 Professor Mineva will play the Mozart Concerto for Two Pianos with guest pianist Dahao Guo, a graduate of the Eastman School of Music who has performed in China, Germany and Spain as well as the U.S. This work has been called one of Mozart’s most engaging concertos, which he wrote for himself and his sister to play. 

 Dr. Binneweg will conduct this concerto as well as Symphony # 8 by 19th century Russian composer Antonin Dvorak. In selecting this Dvorak work as one of the 50 greatest symphonies, music critic Tom Service praised it for “indelible melodies” cast in “crystal-clear orchestration.” 

 Paul Cummings will conduct “Songs of Eternity” by contemporary American composer Mark Del Porto. “It’s a short piece but it has real epic dimensions,” Cummings said. “It calls upon the whole symphony, and the full potential of every instrument." This piece won the composition award from the College Orchestra Directors Association in 2013. 

Humboldt Symphony performs on Friday May 8 at 8 p.m. and Sunday May 10 at 3 p.m. in Fulkerson Recital Hall. Tickets from HSU Ticket Office (826-3928) or at the door: $8 general, $5 seniors and children, HSU students with ID admitted free.  Produced by HSU Music department.

Media: cover of Times-Standard Urge Magazine, Mad River Union, Humboldt State Now.