A free concert will be conducted by guest conductor Philip Nuzzo and the Penn's Woods Philharmonia Orchestra at 7:30 tomorrow night in Schwab Auditorium.
Nuzzo, who describes himself as "a typical kid from Brooklyn," said he learned to love classical music as a child by listening to the music his parents played on the radio. He started playing his sister's piano lessons by ear when he was 5, and experimented with different instruments as he was growing up.
He played the organ best, and although he had no formal training in classical music until he was 23, this instrument that helped him most in his conducting career.
"(My organ and music) teachers took extraordinary time. They almost privately tutored me, but no matter how hard I tried it wasn't going to happen. I was too old. They told me to try conducting instead," Nuzzo said.
After taking his instructors' advice, Nuzzo became music director of the Church of St. Anselms, Brooklyn. Afterward, he founded the Dramatic Music Theatre, an opera company that closed when he was appointed artistic director for the Mississippi Opera.
"There's no minor league in conducting. I created a minor league in Brooklyn (with the Dramatic Music Theatre), and closed it down to go to Mississippi," Nuzzo said. "I'm the youngest guy in the United States to have an artistic director position."
Recently, his career has skyrocketed, with engagements scheduled in exotic locales. In Budapest, Hungary, he will conduct the State Orchestra in Wagner's "The Flying Dutchman." In Belgrad, Yugoslavia, where he will lead the Belgrad Philharmonic in a rendition of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Nuzzo is not afraid of a new cultural experience, even though he has never been abroad before.
"I'm afraid of the plane. I can't swim so I gotta take the plane," he said.
Nuzzo's interest are not purely musical. His other talents helped sustain him when his career was not as successful.
"I don't believe in being a starving musician. When I'm not being maestro, I'm a consultant for nonprofit, excluding arts, organization on government matters," Nuzzo said.
Despite his international success, Nuzzo's proudest achievement is close to home, his 4-year-old daughter Olivia. He points to a place in the center of the front row and smiles.
"She will sit right there and she will light up the place," he said.
Nuzzo chose the program for this week's concert, the third in the Penn's Woods Festival that ends next week.
The first piece, "Overture to L'Italiana in Algeri," was composed by Gioacchino Rossini in just 18 days. The overture presents exhilarating crescendos and sparkling rhythms characteristic of Rossini, assistant conductor Alex Hill said.
The piece was scored for piccolo, paired winds (two instruments playing the same part), strings and Turkish percussion.
Guest cellist Paul Tobias will be featured in "Variations on a Rococo Theme," written by Peter Ilitch Tchaikovsky.
Tobias has received the Solo Recitalist Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts and the Gregor Piatigorsky Award,for being an outstanding American cellist. He has played on three continents and on stages around the country.
The piece was written by Tchaikovsky for his colleague Wilhelm Fitzenhagen, a cellist who revised the work. The Fitzenhagen version was the one eventually published and adopted.
Ludwig von Beethoven's "Symphony No. 7" tops the evening with a volatile paradox typical of the composer's own nature.
Beethoven was alternately a man of classical restraint and Romantic abandon, Hill said.
The "Symphony No. 7" opens with a majestic introduction, followed by a dance-like allegro. The second movement, an allegretto, exhibits a pulsing, elusive rhythm. The piece explodes with the last two movements, full of energy and contrast, Hill said.
The man who will conduct the concert has high hopes for its success and expects it to broaden his talents.
"I don't want to be pigeonholed as an operatic conductor. I'd like to have more orchestral experience under my belt," Nuzzo said.
