BRATTLEBORO — Dorian Elgers-Lo, a 17-year-old senior at Amherst (Mass.) Regional High School, was this year's winner of the Windham Orchestra's 26th annual Concerto Competition, for young musicians, held at the Brattleboro Music Center on Feb. 12.
Elgers-Lo has been playing piano for 10 years, studying previously with Ludmila Krasin, and currently with Gilles Vonsattel. He has won several regional and state piano competitions. In 2011, he placed second in the Bay State Contest, and placed first in the Young Artists' Piano Competition. He is especially drawn to Russian music. He organized and led a Piano Trio last year, and performed Shostakovich's Piano Trio No. 2 at school concerts.
The contestants ranged in age from high-school freshmen to seniors, coming from as far away as Bethel, Vt., and Amherst, Mass. All were violinists except the winner, a pianist. The audition pieces covered musical territory from Mozart to Barber.
“We had a wonderful field of candidates,” said concerto competition organizer Connie Green. “One thing that distinguishes our competition is that we try to make the process as humane as possible, accommodating schedules when we can, and treating the contestants in a friendly, personable way. Many of the students and their parents have thanked us for this.”
Elgers-Lo has also been playing violin for eight years. He presently leads his High School Honors Orchestra as its concertmaster. Dorian has participated in the MMEA All-State festival orchestra for two consecutive years, and spent his last summer at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute as a violinist in the Young Artist Orchestra. As a National Merit Scholarship finalist, Dorian hopes to continue his musical studies into college, while majoring in biomedical engineering.
He will perform his winning piece, Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 1 in Db, Opus 10, with the Windham Orchestra at the Latchis Theatre on Main Street during a special performance for school children on Thursday, March 22, at 9:30 a.m. and at a public concert on Sunday, March 25 at 3 p.m.
“Mocking, twisted, and bordering on the grotesque, Prokofiev's First Piano concerto pushes straight through the limits of what is 'acceptable' in music,” says Elgers-Lo. “The piece begins with a huge orchestral opening that sounds like it belongs at the end of the piece and is somewhat reminiscent of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov – but it quickly becomes clear that something isn't quite right. There is a moment of silence, and then, in a jarringly abrupt transition, the piano hammers out something between a toccata and a technical exercise, with almost annoying precision. It is this mood of sardonic caricature that drives the rest of the concerto.”
For additional information about the Windham Orchestra, visit www.windhamorchestra.org. For tickets to the Orchestra's March concerts, visit www.bmcvt.org or call the Brattleboro Music Center at 802-257-4523.