Composer Felix Mendelssohn’s beloved Violin Concerto in E Minor, performed by violinist Olga Kolpakova, will be featured during “Romancing the Strings,” a concert by the Daytona Solisti Chamber Orchestra. The concert, which is the final performance of Daytona Solisti’s 2025 Winter Festival celebrating the group’s 20th anniversary, also will include Mendelssohn’s lively String Sinfonia No. 2 and Antonin Dvorak’s famous Serenade for Strings, Op. 22.
“Romancing the Strings” will be presented at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, March 23, at Port Orange Presbyterian Church, 4662 S. Clyde Morris Blvd., Port Orange, where Daytona Solisti is in residence. A $15 donation is requested at the door. For more information call 386-562-5423 or go online at daytonasolisti.com.
Violinist Olga Kolpakova is concertmaster and a frequent soloist with Daytona Solisti. Ms. Kolpakova, a native of Mariyskaya ASSR, Russia, is an accomplished seven-year alumna member of the elite Kiev Chamber Orchestra with whom she toured extensively, performing in the great concert halls of Europe and elsewhere. She is an active freelance violinist in Florida, especially performing frequently with musical groups in the Orlando area.
Composed of professional musicians from throughout Central Florida and Northeast Florida, Daytona Solisti performs the music of the master composers of the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as the occasional modern work.
Daytona Solisti was founded in 2005 by violinist and conductor Susan Pitard Acree, upon her move to Daytona Beach from Atlanta, where she had performed in the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for 22 years. The Daytona Solisti Chamber Orchestra is conducted by Ms. Acree and composed of 10 professional string musicians performing string orchestra works as well as orchestral concerto accompaniments which have been transcribed for string orchestra.
Works on Solisti’s “Romancing the Strings” program include Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor, his innovative last concerto which he composed over six years, from 1838 to 1844, at the dawn of the Romantic period of classical music. According to Simon P. Keefe in “The Cambridge Companion to the Concerto,” Mendelssohn’s work is considered one of the greatest violin concertos in the repertoire.
“Romancing the Strings” also will feature Serenade for Strings, Op. 22, by Czech composer Antonin Dvorak. The work, which Dvorak wrote in just 12 days, premiered in Prague in December 1876 when he was 35 years old. A music reviewer at that performance noted that “Dvorak gave us a pleasant surprise with his serenade for string orchestra, showing decisive progress in the evolution of his artistic development,” thus helping the composer gain notice beyond Prague for the first time. The Serenade would go on to become one of Dvorak’s most popular and frequently performed works.
Opening the concert will be Mendelssohn’s lively String Sinfonia No. 2. Like Mozart, Mendelssohn was a child prodigy on both violin and piano. Inspired by the works of Mozart, Haydn and other composers of the Classical era, Mendelssohn composed his 13 string sinfonias between 1821 and 1823, when he was 12 to 14 years old.
Daytona Solisti presents an annual concert series titled Winter Festival, performing as the Daytona Solisti Chamber Orchestra and the Daytona Solisti String Quartet. Daytona Solisti also presents solo performances by pianist Dr. Michael Rickman, and concerts by the Rickman-Acree-Corporon Piano Trio.
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