La Sierra Orchestra’s season kickoff to feature concerto prize winner

  Arts+Culture  

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – The La Sierra University Orchestra, led by Director of Orchestral Studies Dean Anderson, will feature prize-winning cellist Shuo Ma in its first concert of the season.

Dean Anderson conducts the La Sierra University Orchestra. (Photos: Natan Vigna)
Dean Anderson conducts the La Sierra University Orchestra. (Photos: Natan Vigna)
Cellist Shuo Ma won last spring's concerto competition at La Sierra University.
Cellist Shuo Ma won last spring's concerto competition at La Sierra University.

The orchestra’s fall concert will be held on Sat. Oct. 28 at 7 p.m. in Hole Memorial Auditorium, and will highlight Ma, the 2017 recipient of La Sierra’s Marcia Specht-Guy Concerto Prize. Program repertoire will include John Rutter’s “Suite for Strings,” Davidovich’s “Cello Concerto No. 1,” and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Symphony No. 41 in C major.”

Ma, a native of China and performer’s certificate student at La Sierra University, began studying cello at the age of 5. By age 8, he had received two gold prizes in China’s Ningxia cello competition and was the second medalist in the amateur category D of the AiQin Cup National Cello Competition. In 2010, he was the gold medalist in the amateur category A of the competition.

Ma was enrolled in the Primary School Attendant to the China Central Conservatory of music in 2010 and the Middle School Attendant in 2012. In 2011, he performed as a soloist in the Beijing Concert Hall and also performed that year at the Russian Embassy. He has also appeared at Shandong University and with the China Youth Symphony Orchestra. Most recently, Ma was awarded the Marcia Specht-Guy Concerto Prize for his cello concerto performance as part of La Sierra’s long-running annual concerto competition.

Anderson has been the director of orchestral studies at La Sierra for four years. He also serves as music director for the Dana Point Symphony and as artistic director for Symphony Irvine. In 2015, Anderson joined the Montecito International Music Festival acting as the principal orchestra director. He has guest conducted orchestras around the world and was the first American to conduct the Ho Chi Minh City Ballet Symphony in Vietnam. As a conductor of opera, he has directed productions with Opera UCLA, the Fullerton College Opera Workshop, and the La Sierra University Opera. Anderson studied violin with John Mcleod and conducting with Edward Dolbashian at the University of Missouri in Columbia. He earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of California, Los Angeles.

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