SAMUEL WONG LEADS THE MANNES ORCHESTRA ON
MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2002, 8 PM, AT ALICE TULLY HALL

Mannes Master's Degree Candidate, Yukiko Akagi, is piano soloist
in Ravel's Concerto in G Major for Piano and Orchestra

Program also includes Mozart's Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K. 385
"Haffner" andShostakovich's Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 54

(New York, NY – November 4, 2002) Conductor Samuel Wong leads The Mannes Orchestra on Monday, December 9, 2002 at 8:00 p.m. at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, 65th and Broadway, NYC. The program for the evening features Mozart's Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K. 385 "Haffner," Ravel's Concerto in G Major for Piano and Orchestra, and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 54. Samuel Wong is Principal Conductor of the Mannes Orchestra. (David Hayes is Director of Orchestral and Conducting Studies at Mannes College of Music.) To reserve tickets to this free concert, call Alice Tully Hall at 212-875-5050.

Yukiko Akagi was awarded her performance as piano soloist in Ravel's Concerto in G Major for Piano and Orchestra with The Mannes Orchestra as Grand Prize winner of the 2002 Mannes Concerto Competition. Ms. Akagi began her music studies at age 4 in her native Japan. At age 8, she entered the preparatory division of Toho Conservatory, studying with Hiroko Mizuno. She continued her training at Toho Conservatory, where she studied with Nobuko Amada and Nobuyoshi Kato and received her Bachelor of Music degree. She was the winner of the Kobe International Competition and the National Piano Teachers Association Competition, where her award included a solo recital in Kanagawa, Japan. As a Mannes student, she has performed in two concerts of the Mannes's "La Belle Époque" Festival. Currently, she is a Master's degree candidate at Mannes and studies with Jerome Rose.

Samuel Wong will conduct the Hong Kong Philharmonic in the 2002-03 season when they tour London, Paris, Dublin, Belfast, Seoul, and Macau. He will also return to Spain, where he will conduct the orchestra of Asturias. Maestro Wong recently signed a third contract (until 2005) with the Honolulu Symphony. His recent CD releases include Busoni: "Turandot Suite; Sarabande et Cortège; Berceuse élégiaque" (Naxos) and Bright Sheng: "China Dreams, Nanking! Nanking!, and Two Songs from the Sung Dynasty." A Takemitsu disc will be recorded in January 2003.

****

Mannes College of Music, founded in 1916, is one of the world's major conservatories of music. A division of New School University, Mannes offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs, as well as a Professional Studies Diploma program. Notable alumni from Mannes include soprano Frederica von Stade, pianists Murray Perahia and Richard Goode, and conductors Semyon Bychkov, Myung-Whun Chung, JoAnn Falletta and Julius Rudel. Joel Lester is Dean of the College. For further information on Mannes, call (212) 580-0210 or go to the Web site at www.mannes.edu.

New School University, with 7,000 matriculated students and 25,000 continuing education students, is a New York City university committed to critical scholarship, artistic integrity, and ethical responsibility in the social sciences, humanities, the arts and design. It is comprised of a liberal arts foundation of three schools: The New School, Eugene Lang College and the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science, and five professional schools: Parsons School of Design, Mannes College of Music, Actors Studio Drama School, Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy, and the Jazz & Contemporary Music Program. New School Online University offers one of the largest selections of online courses in the nation. For further information about admission to New School University, call (877) 5Ave-321 or go to the Web site at www.newschool.edu.