The Androscoggin Valley Community Orchestra and the Augusta Symphony Orchestra will join for a concert under their artistic director, Paul Ross.

Chiharu Naruse will be the featured soloist in the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2. The combined orchestras will also perform the “William Tell Overture” by Rossini and the “Siegfried Idyll” by Wagner.

The concert will be performed twice: at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 4, at the South Parish Congregational Church in Augusta; and at 7 p.m. Sunday, June 5, at High Street Congregational Church in Auburn.

Naruse, who was born in 1977 in Itami City, Japan, began studying piano at age 4. In 1997, she moved to Germany to study under Klaus Baessler and Wolfrahm Rieger at a music conservatory, Hochshule Fur Musik – Hanns Eisler in Berlin.

She performed numerous recitals and concerts while at the conservatory, including a concert to raise money for Amnesty International, and she was a featured performer at the German-Japanese Culture Center in Berlin.

Naruse has competed in numerous piano competitions throughout the world including the Internationaler Mozartwettbewerb in Salzburg, Austria, and the Pescara Academie Piano Competition in Pescara, Italy. She was awarded the silver prize at the Hyogo Piano Competition in Hyogo, Japan. She moved to the United States in June 2002 and now lives in Hallowell.

Since her arrival in the United States, she has performed regularly at Bates College as well as with a number of notable music groups, including the Portland String Quartet. She recently performed the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 (the “Emperor”) with the Augusta Symphony and is scheduled to perform the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 in June with the Augusta Symphony.

Admission for the Augusta concert will be $8, with young people through high school age admitted free. Admission for the Auburn concert will be $5, with students admitted free.

Tickets will be available at the door for both concerts. FMI: call 795-6921.

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