New concertmaster debuts!
posted 09:05 AM Wednesday, May 12, 2010
By: Chip Chandler
Rossitza Jekova-Goza, the newest member of the Harrington String Quartet, will make her debut as Amarillo Symphony concertmaster at our May 14-15 concerts.
Jekova-Goza, 37, was hired in February as a Harrington lecturer and violin instructor at West Texas A&M University, in addition to her position with the Symphony.
The Symphony’s season-closing concerts are packed with three of the more popular orchestral works in the repertoire.
Concerts begin at 8 p.m. in the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts. Single tickets run from $18 to $56 ($16 for students and seniors), but a limited number of $20 Standby tickets will be available beginning Thursday. For these limited standby seats, call the Symphony office at 376-8782 or visit www.amarillosymphony.org. Otherwise, patrons can purchase tickets through Panhandletickets through its several outlets, via phone at 378-3096 or its Web site, www.panhandletickets.com.
The “Discover Triumph” concerts highlight violinist Brian Lewis on Samuel Barber’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 14, one of the American composer’s most beloved works. The concerts also include Jean Sibelius’s “Finlandia,” one of the Symphony audience’s favorite works, and Camille Saint-Saëns’s Symphony No. 3, “Organ Symphony.”
Born and raised in Bulgaria, Jekova-Goza is currently a violin lecturer at the University of North Texas in Denton. She has performed in numerous recital and concerto appearances throughout Europe and the United States.
Jekova-Goza has held the position of leader of the first violin section at Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra and Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland. She also has performed with the Fulbright Trio and the Holmberg Quartet. Her teaching experience includes positions at the University of Arkansas, the University of Oklahoma and the Encore School for Strings.
After attending conservatory in her native Bulgaria, Jekova-Goza received her bachelor's and master's degrees from Louisiana State University and her doctoral degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music.
The coordinating board reviewed almost 40 applicants for the position. Of them, four were invited to audition in Amarillo.
Because of the unusual three-pronged nature of quartet members’ positions – in the quartet, as principal players with the Symphony and as WT music instructors – the search process was complex and necessarily lengthy, said Mark White, chairman of the HSQ Coordinating Board and president of the Amarillo Symphony board of directors.
The coordinating board continues to search for a violist to fill the remaining open spot in the quartet.
