Arts council sponsors classical concert recital

MILFORD - The Pike County Arts Council will present a concert by violinist Elliot Rosoff, violist Brett Deubner, cellist Scott Ballantyne and pianist Christopher Johnson on Saturday, Sept. 29, at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Milford, and on Saturday, Sept. 30, at the Big Bear Ski Lodge at Masthope Mountain Community in Lackawaxen. The Arts Council, which in the past has presented chamber music by the Cleveland Quartet, the Shanghai Quartet and opera artists John Gilmore and Mary Poole, also presented its own chamber orchestra in music festivals at Grey Towers. Elliot Rosoff is a well-known violinist who has performed in every major city in the U.S. as a soloist, concertmaster, or chamber music ensemble member. He has recorded many solo and chamber music albums and CDs. He has performed and recorded with hundreds of artists, including Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Barbara Streisand, Johnny Mathis, the Bee Gees, and Luciano Pavarotti. Rosoff currently resides in New York City and Milford. Scott Ballantyne, cellist, studied with Leonard Rose, and has served on the Juilliard and Cleveland Institute faculties. He recently performed at Avery Fisher Hall for Mostly Mozart and Schubert Cello music in Paris for a ballet written for him. Other solo appearances include Tokyo’s Bunkamura, Alice Tully Hall, the Museum of Modern Art, and the New Jersey Philharmonic, Eastern Music Festival, the Utah Symphony, and the Little Orchestra Society orchestras. Violist Brett Deubner has made concerto appearances with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Knoxville Symphony, the North Shore Symphony of Boston, the Eastman Philharmonica, as well as the Bachanalia Chamber Orchestra, and the New Philharmonic of New Jersey. Deubner is a professor of viola and chamber music at Temple University and the Concert Artist in viola at Kean University. American concert pianist Christopher Johnson currently performs over 30 concerts each year. On January 18, 2001, Johnson performed the Horowitz arrangement of Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever in Washington, D.C., at the pre-inauguration All-Star Gala at the Lincoln Memorial for President George W. Bush, an event presented to a live audience of 75,000 and broadcast internationally to millions of viewers. A native of New Jersey, Johnson began studying the piano at age five. Johnson has been an annual fixture at the Bar Harbor Music festival in Maine since 1996, where he performs solo and chamber music, and through which he has made over a dozen collegiate residency tours throughout Pennsylvania. Both events are at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased at the church or by calling 570-296-8340 for Milford, or 570-685-4790 for Masthope, or by sending $25 per ticket to the Pike County Arts Council at 402 Broad Street, Milford, PA 18337 for either event.