Janet Fantozzi Memorial Concert
Saturday, May 16, 2026, 3:00 pm
Hoffman Auditorium, Bruyette Athenaeum
University of Saint Joseph, West Hartford
WILLIAMS: Premiere & Commission 2025
COLERIDGE-TAYLOR: Petite Suite de Concert, Op. 77
Le caprice de Nannette
Demande et réponse
Un sonnet d’amour
La tarantelle frétillante
COLERIDGE-TAYLOR: “Danse nègre. Allegro assai” from African Suite, Op. 35
DVORAK: Symphony No. 6 in D Major
Tickets
This concert will honor Janet Fantozzi, an incredible and impactful music educator in Farmington. Having taught and played with our FVSO members, it is an honor to remember her through music.
Nate Williams is a composer for film, television, and video games based in Los Angeles.
Recent credits include the score for animation films Hitchhiker (Winner of Best Score at Feel the Reel International Film Festival, 2025), The Frog Part of Town (2025), and Frankie (Kids First! and Coronation Film Festivals, 2024). He also provided the score for video games Rat Race (2025), Clockwork Enigma (2025),
and Solar Showdown (2023).
Nate has also provided orchestration, conducting, and recording for artist productions including Allbrook Station, Baby Queen, The Amity Affliction, and Hei’An.
Nate studied cello performance and commercial music at Brigham Young University, graduating in 2023. He then pursued an MFA in Music Composition for the Screen at Columbia College Chicago, graduating in 2025. The program culminated in a full orchestra recording session at Warner Bros’ Eastwood Scoring Stage in Los Angeles.
Nate was born and raised in Farmington, Connecticut, where he was an active cellist in Farmington High School and the Farmington Valley Symphony Orchestra. He studied cello privately with Eric Dahlin at the Hartt School of Music.
Nate lives in Los Angeles, CA with his wife Lisa (who is also a cellist), and 2-year old son Luka.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875 – 1912) Afro-British
African Suite, Op. 35 (1898)
Petite Suite de Concert, Op. 77 (1911)
First Performance: No documentation
FVSO Performance: FVSO Premiere
These two works show Coleridge-Taylor at critical junctures in his compositional career. The African Suite is a four movement work originally written for piano, the last movement was later orchestrated by Coleridge-Taylor. It was written at the suggestion of African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. Dunbar had encouraged Coleridge-Taylor, who was of Sierra Leonean descent, to explore his African heritage through his music. In 1898, Coleridge-Taylor was deep in his monumental work Hiawatha, a multi part cantata, which would go on to define his whole career. By 1911 when Coleridge-Taylor wrote Petite Suite de Concert, he was a well established composer in British music. The suite is very much a marriage of English romanticism of Elgar and the opera comique style of Sullivan. It is frothy and lighthearted but showing a brilliant command of melody and orchestration. Tragically, less than a year later, Coleridge-Taylor would die from complications from pneumonia, cutting short a promising career at just 37 years.
Antonín Leopold Dvořák (1841-1904) Czech/Bohemian
Symphony No. 6 in D major, Op. 60 (1880)
First Performance: March 25, 1881 in Prague, Czechia. Czech Philharmonic, Adolf Čech, conductor.
FVSO Performances: 03/10/83 (Eells), 11/16/91 (Eells)
Dvořák’s 6th Symphony marks a pivotal moment in his career. Written shortly after the enormous success of his Slavonic Dances, the symphony showcases Dvořák’s newfound confidence on the international stage. While his earlier symphonies were more directly influenced by composers like Beethoven and Schubert, the Sixth Symphony finds Dvořák fully integrating his Czech national voice with the grand symphonic tradition established by his mentor and close friend, Johannes Brahms. The work, in fact, shares many parallels with Brahms’s own Symphony No. 2, also in D Major, with both works radiating a warm, pastoral, and optimistic glow.
The symphony is structured in four movements:
Allegro non tanto. The first movement opens with a peaceful and lyrical theme in the strings, immediately establishing the serene, expansive mood. The music unfolds with a grace and ease that feels entirely natural, a testament to Dvořák’s melodic genius. The movement’s development is masterfully handled, building tension and drama before returning to the calm and beautiful opening material.
Adagio. The slow second movement is a deeply expressive and tender meditation. Dvořák creates a sense of profound melancholy and longing through its rich orchestration and soaring melodies. The music is reflective and introspective, offering a quiet counterpoint to the sunny optimism of the outer movements.
Scherzo (Furiant): Presto. This is the heart of the symphony and perhaps its most distinctive movement. Instead of a typical scherzo, Dvořák employs a Furiant, a lively and energetic Czech folk dance characterized by its shifting rhythms. The music is exhilarating and full of life, bursting with national color and spirit. It is a vibrant and joyous celebration that perfectly captures the essence of Dvořák’s Bohemian heritage.
Finale: Allegro con spirito. The symphony concludes with a triumphant and spirited finale. Dvořák weaves together themes from previous movements and introduces new, heroic material, building to a powerful and joyous conclusion. The movement is full of energy and forward momentum, bringing the symphony to a glorious and uplifting close.
Dvořák’s Symphony No. 6 is a work of great beauty and warmth. It demonstrates a composer at the height of his powers, expertly blending the structural elegance of German Romanticism with the vibrant, folkloric soul of his homeland, creating a symphony that is both personal and universal.