Jonathan Pasternack conducts the University Symphony in a performance of works by Wagner, Berg, and Ravel. Selections include Good Friday Spell Music from ‘Parsifal’, by Wagner; Violin Concerto (featuring Elisa Barston, violin) by Alban  Berg; and L’enfant et les sortileges (concert version) by Maurice Ravel, featuring students from the UW Voice program.

ARTIST BIO

Elisa Barston, violin

Praised for her “glowing sound” and “technical aplomb” (The Strad), violinist Elisa Barston is the Seattle Symphony’s Principal Second Violin. Prior to the appointment, she served as the Associate Concertmaster of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra for eight seasons and was a first violin section member of The Cleveland Orchestra.

As a soloist and chamber musician, Barston has performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Asia, appearing with the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the St. Louis and Taipei symphony orchestras, among many others.

In 1986, she made her European debut with the English Chamber Orchestra at the request of Sir Yehudi Menuhin. Barston studied at the University of Southern California and Indiana University.

CONDUCTOR BIO

Jonathan Pasternack, conductor

Dr. Jonathan Pasternack is Director of Orchestral Activities at the University of Washington School of Music during the 2010-11 academic year. He has conducted orchestras, opera and ballet in the United States and Europe, with such ensembles as the London Symphony Orchestra, Residentie Orkest of the Hague, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, among many others. His debut recording, leading the London Symphony Orchestra in Béla Bartók's Miraculous Mandarin suite and the Symphony No. 1 by Johannes Brahms, will be released in January 2011 on the Naxos label.

His opera conducting experience includes productions of Tosca, Don Carlos, Die Fledermaus, The Turn of the Screw, Les Dialogues des Carmèlites, Cendrillon, L'enfant et les sortileges and Il barbiere di Siviglia. He led the Paris premiere of Robert Clerc's Á l'ombre du grand arbre and the world premiere of The Prestigious Music Award by Gloria Wilson Swisher at Shoreline Community College. He recently conducted performances of Wayne Horvitz's chamber opera-oratorio, The Heartsong of Charging Elk, as part of an educational tour presented by Washington State University in Pullman and Vancouver.

Born and raised in New York City, Jonathan Pasternack studied violin, cello, trombone, piano and percussion. He won a trombone scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music at the age of sixteen and later transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to pursue studies in astronomy, philosophy and political science. He earned master's and doctorate degrees in music from the University of Washington, where he studied conducting with Peter Erös and trombone with Stuart Dempster. His other conducting teachers and mentors have included Neeme Järvi, Hans Vonk, Valery Gergiev, Jorma Panula, James DePreist, Murry Sidlin, and David Zinman. At the invitation of Mr. Zinman, Jonathan Pasternack attended the Aspen Music Festival and School as a featured Academy Conductor, where he was the recipient of fellowships in both conducting and trombone. In 2002, he was awarded Second Prize at the Sixth Cadaqués International Conducting Competition in Barcelona, Spain, where he was the only American invited to compete.

Dr. Pasternack has served as Assistant Conductor with the Oregon Symphony, Resident Conductor and Managing Director of the Icicle Creek Music Center in Leavenworth, and Visiting Director of Orchestral Activities at Pacific Lutheran University. He has served as guest faculty at the University of Washington, Central Washington University, East Oregon University, Pacific University, Conservatoire de Maurepas in France and Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique de Genève in Switzerland.