Professional pianist Greg Anderson first played Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in C Major, Opus 56, Movement I for then-Stillwater Area High School Orchestra Director Jim Hainlen when he was a junior.
Anderson, who graduated in 2000, will return to the area on Tuesday to play it again in a concert to mark the 50th anniversary of the school district’s orchestra program.
Anderson is an international touring pianist who performs in 80 to 100 shows a year. He also performs as part of the Anderson & Roe piano duo, whose self-made, Emmy-nominated music videos have been viewed by millions online and at international film festivals.
The Stillwater Area High School orchestra program “helped me on a daily basis to recognize my own humanity and creative strengths at a young age and that is something that has served me my entire life,” Anderson said.
The concert, which will feature the Stillwater Middle School Chamber Orchestra, the Oak-Land Middle School Sixth Grade Honors Orchestra and Stillwater Area High School’s Concert Orchestra, will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday at St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church in Mahtomedi. The concert is free, but a donation of $10 for adults and $5 for students is suggested.
Funds will go to the school district’s Orchestra Legacy Fund, an endowment fund created in 2004 that brings composers to the schools for residency programs, funds scholarships and pays for guest artists. “We use the fund for things outside the scope of ‘average’ orchestra programs — things that make our program exceptional,” said Ryan Jensen, Stillwater Area High School’s director of orchestras.
The other two soloists who will perform are: Cellist Dylan Tischer, a SAHS alumni, music educator and winner of Concordia Moorhead’s Concerto Competition; and violinist Grace Weitzel, a current SAHS student and winner of the Great Twin Cities Youth Symphonies’ Concerto Competition.
The school district’s orchestra was formed in the 1972-73 school year, starting in the grade schools and working its way up to the high school in 1977.
