New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra

For its mid-winter concert, the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra welcomes conductor Julius Akira Mauldin. Mauldin is currently an undergraduate student at the Mannes School of Music in New York City, studying orchestral conducting under David Hayes. He was a finalist in the LA Conducting Competition, and in 2022, he founded the Westside Chamber Players, a orchestral ensemble made up of conservatory students based in New York. The performance will open with cellist Mia Kim Bernard as the soloist in a performance of Dvorák's Cello Concerto in B Minor, one of the most popular concertos in the orchestral canon and one of the composer's most enduring works. Bernard is a versatile 19-year-old cellist currently pursuing her bachelor's degree at The Juilliard School as a scholarship student under the tutelage of Astrid Schween. The concert will conclude with the Symphony No. 1 in E Minor by Sibelius. Music critic Roger Dettmer said of the symphony, "Melodic substance and sonorities are voluptuous in the First."