Luther College Symphony Orchestra releases CD

The Luther College Music Department has released “Russian Masterworks,” a new CD featuring the Luther College Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Baldwin.

The CD includes two major orchestral works by Russian composers: Dmitri Shostakovich’s Concerto No. 1 for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 107, featuring cellist Eric Kutz, Luther assistant professor of music, and Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64.

Online ordering information can be found on the Luther College Music Recordings website, http://music.luther.edu/recordings. CDs are also available through the Luther Bookshop, (888) 521-5039.

The CD was recorded live in the Center for Faith and Life at Luther under the technical production of Bruce Larson, Luther’s technical media specialist.

The Luther College Symphony Orchestra, Luther’s largest and oldest orchestral ensemble, maintains an active rehearsal and performance schedule during the academic year. More than 85 student musicians, representing a variety of academic majors, perform with Symphony Orchestra. Each February, Symphony Orchestra hosts more than 200 high school string players at the annual Dorian Orchestra Festival.

Symphony Orchestra tours yearly throughout the U.S. and maintains a three-week residency in Vienna, Austria every four years, performing in venues such as the Vienna Konzerthaus and the Bruckner Conservatory in Linz.

Since 1997, Baldwin has served as director of orchestral activities at Luther. In addition to his work as conductor of the Luther College Symphony and Chamber Orchestras and the Opera Workshop, Baldwin teaches conducting. He holds the bachelor of music degree from Furman University and the master of music and doctor of musical arts degrees from the University of Texas at Austin.

He studied conducting with Henry Charles Smith, Cornelius Eberhardt, Sung Kwak, Walter Dulcoux and Fiora Contino.

Baldwin has also served as the musical director of the Central Kentucky Youth Orchestras and the Transylvania Youth Orchestra of the Brevard Music Center, the largest summer music festival in the South.

A 1991 conducting fellow of the Conductor’s Institute of the University of South Carolina and formerly a cellist with the Brevard Music Center Orchestra, Baldwin maintains an active schedule as clinician, adjudicator and guest conductor.

Soloist Kutz has been a member of the Luther faculty since 2002, and remains active as a chamber and orchestral musician and a soloist.  Kutz is a founding member of the Murasaki Duo, a cello and piano ensemble which toured Scandinavia last spring and has performed at several leading festivals.  The Duo regularly performs on chamber music series throughout the nation.

As an orchestral musician, Kutz summers in Chicago as a member of the Grant Park Symphony’s cello section.  He has appeared in the New York Philharmonic and has been principal cellist of the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra and the Juilliard Orchestra.

For four years prior to his arrival at Luther, Kutz was the cellist of the Chester String Quartet, in residence at Indiana University South Bend. He performed over 100 concerts during his tenure with the quartet, and with them toured Switzerland, England and Canada.

Kutz holds degrees from the Juilliard School and Rice University.