University Symphony Orchestra
The University Symphony Orchestra is made up of approximately 85 student musicians led and conducted by Professor Jeffrey Renshaw. Repertoire includes challenging works of the standard classical, romantic, and contemporary orchestral literature. The orchestra performs from time to time with the Festival Chorus and the Opera Program.
Orchestra members are chosen by audition. Auditions take place at the beginning of the fall semester and are mandatory each year for all students, non-majors, and community members alike.
2008 – 2009 Repertoire
Jeffrey H. Renshaw, conductor
Howard Hsu, associate conductor
Scott Chaurette, assistant conductor
October 10, 2008
- Berlioz: Roman Carnival Overture
- Wagner: Siegfried’s Rhine Journey
- Lu Wei: D-C-A-C: Variations on a Chinese Folk Song (premiere)
- Stravinsky: Firebird Suite (1919)
December 4, 2008
- Mozart: Magic Flute Overture
- Concerto Competition Winners
March 5, 2009
- Schwantner: Morning’s Embrace
- Beethoven: Symphony No. 5
- Brahms: Tragic Overture
April 30, 2009
- McBride: Piano Concerto, Earl MacDonald, soloist (premiere)
- Copland: Four Dance Episodes from “Rodeo”
- Weber: Der Freischütz Overture
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About composer Lu Wei Lu Wei (from "luwei," meaning "reed" in Chinese) is the pen name for composer Feng Wenyuan. Born in China in 1920, Lu Wei lived in Paris, France, from 1946 to 1955. He studied harmony, solfège and piano at the Conservatoire National and received certificates in fugue and counterpoint. After returning to China in 1955, he taught composition at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.
D-C-A-C: Variations on a Chinese Folk Song is Lu Wei’s only surviving composition. In the summer of 1966, when the "Cultural Revolution" was about to sweep the country, Lu Wei saw on his desk a familiar folk song, which had been given new words under the title "The Sky of the Liberated Zone." The liberated zone referred to the areas occupied by the Communists before the Nationalists were driven from the mainland.
The sky of the liberated zone is bright,
The people in the liberated zone are very happy,
The democratic government loves the people,
The kindness of the Communist Party is
beyond the description of words.
Lu Wei found much irony in this song and wrote a set of variations on it. Fearful of Red Guards coming to his house and discovering the manuscript, he asked a relative to take it away for safe keeping. Soon after, Lu Wei's house was searched and he was imprisoned for six months. After release from prison, he was labeled a "counter-revolutionary class enemy" and was ordered to serve the Shanghai Conservatory of Music as a janitor. Every day, he was allowed to take lunch breaks in a janitor's closet under a staircase. Along with all the cleaning supplies, the conservatory furnished the closet with a small table, a chair, and a light with a 15 watt bulb so that Lu Wei could write "confessions" of his crime. As his relative had returned him the manuscript of Variations on a Chinese Folk Song, he began to orchestrate the music. In 1976, at the end of the "Cultural Revolution" and 10 long years after composing the variations, Lu Wei completed the orchestration along with the parts, in the janitor's dark closet. He was inspired by the last four notes of the music — D-C-A-C — and their effect on the whole piece and thus added them to the title. To him the D stood for the French "Dieu" (God), C for "Christ," and A for "Amour" (Love). The second C stood for the resurrected Christ.
Lu Wei retired from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music shortly after the Cultural Revolution. The manuscript of D-C-A-C was shelved in his study until it reached David Woods, dean of the School of Fine Arts at the University of Connecticut.
From notes by Dr. Yuhang Rong, assistant dean of the Neag School of Education |