On Friday evening, April 25, several Bethel Park High School German Club members attended a special performance of German classical music by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at Heinz Hall.
Conductor Manfred Honeck led an evening of firsts, including Beethoven’s First Symphony and a brilliant new work by German composer Sophia Jani, who was personally in attendance for the performance. Vikingur Ólafsson, one of today’s most sought-after and captivating pianists, also performed Brahms’s towering First Concerto in his much-anticipated PSO debut.
Prior to the concert, the students and their teacher, Mr. Christopher Tobias, had the opportunity to meet Maestro Honeck, an Austrian who answered questions and chatted with them in both English and German. The group also spoke with two of the PSO’s violinists, Dylan Naroff and Vivian Lang, who answered questions and shared their personal strategies and advice regarding practice and preparation.
The BPHS students in attendance were sophomores Victoria Carberry, Ashley Mason, Sydney Miller, Jude Nelis, Zoey Roberts, and Adele Stamenov of the Honors German III class, and seniors River Hendrych-Bondra and Brady McKiernan of the AP German Language & Culture class.
The BPHS group attended the event at the invitation of the Central Valley High School German Club and their teacher, Mrs. Erica Kain. Mr. Tobias and Mrs. Kain are both 1989 graduates of Bethel Park High School and studied German together at BPHS under the tutelage of Mr. Paul Dietrich.