The American Prize-winning Valdosta Symphony Orchestra opens its 27th season with Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy, Op. 46 and Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 97 “Rhenish” at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 17, in Whitehead Auditorium. Tickets are on sale now.
 
The VSO’s season-opening concert features virtuoso violinist Caroline Goulding performing Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy, a four-movement composition for violin and orchestra completed in 1890. Dr. Howard Hsu, VSO music director and conductor, described the piece as “a very engaging work that is also renowned for being extremely difficult.”
 
“I know that she will make it sound easy and dazzle us in the process,” he added.
 
Goulding debuted at the age of 13 as a soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra. Over the past decade she has gone on to solo with the world’s premier orchestras; appear in recital at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Beijing’s Forbidden City Concert Hall, the Tonhalle in Zurich, the Louvre Museum, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; and perform as a chamber musician as part of the Marlboro Music Festival. She is a two-time recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant and winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and Helen Armstrong Violin Fellowship. She and pianist Danae Dörken recently released an album featuring works for violin and piano, and it has already been nominated for the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, or the German Record Critics Award. Her first album, released in 2009, was nominated for a Grammy Award.   
 
The VSO will conclude its season-opening concert with Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, a tribute to the Rhine River. Hsu said that this piece “has incredible power and drive, combined with great expressive beauty.”
 
Tickets for Saturday’s performance are $27 for adults, $10 for students, and free for Valdosta State University music majors. Discounts are also available for senior citizens, military personnel, and VSU faculty and staff.
 
Whitehead Auditorium is located on the first floor of VSU’s Fine Arts Building, at the intersection of Brookwood Drive and Oak Street.
 
Visit www.valdostasymphony.org or contact Maggie Vallotton with VSU’s College of Arts Outreach Office at (229) 333-2150 or [email protected] to reserve tickets or learn more. Tickets are also available at the VSO Box Office before each event.