SCHOENBERGER GOES SOLO

The Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D major is a piece of music to make a violinist think about switching to the harmonica. The work is a demanding test of technical skill and the ability both to play aggressively and to convey sadness.

So it is only natural that Liesl Schoenberger, only a freshman at Notre Dame Regional High School, is making her debut as a symphony orchestra soloist this year by performing the concerto's first movement.

Schoenberger played the piece with the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra in Jackson, Miss., last month and will repeat the performance tonight with the Paducah Symphony Orchestra.

As the winner of the instrumental division of the Paducah Symphony's 1999 Young Artist Competition, Schoenberger will share the stage with the piano division winner, Lisa Fairchild of Cordova, Tenn..

The concert will begin at 8 tonight at the Tilghman High School Auditorium, 2500 Washington St., in Paducah. Tickets are available by calling 1 (800) 738-3727.

Schoenberger, who's also the reigning Missouri junior fiddle champion, won the right to perform with the symphonies through auditions. The Mississippi performance was a children's concert before 2,000 youngsters, but Schoenberger has been invited back to perform with the symphony again during its regular subscription series.

Her parents, Dr. John and Brenda Schoenberger of Cape Girardeau, drive her to Indiana University in Bloomington for weekly lessons with her teacher, Mimi Zweig. Zweig chose the Tchaikovsky concerto for her precocious student, who welcomed the challenge.

The work was written in 1878 for an acclaimed violinist who concluded it couldn't be played. The piece finally was performed in 1881. "People didn't like it when it first came out. They said it beat the violin black and blue," Schoenberger says.

Now the work is considered part of standard solo repertoire and is known for its beauty as well as its difficulty.

Schoenberger admits playing the physically demanding 30-minute movement exhausts her.

"There's only so much you can do on a violin at the same time," she says.

The Tchaikovsky concerto is the kind of work a violin soloist can return to again and again throughout her career and continue to improve on. "I think it's impossible to master something," Schoenberger says. "Everything in music is a cycle."

The Mississippi concert was Schoenberger's first solo turn with a symphony orchestra. She was thrilled. "You dream about having an orchestra back you when you listen to a CD," she said.

But playing before an audience doesn't make her anxious. "I get a little bit nervous because my mom gets nervous," she said.

In fact, she prefers auditioning live and performing live to making a recording. "With a recording you're not playing for anybody except a microphone and a tape recorder," she said. "I like to play for people. You get the feeling and emotion from them."

Last fall, she was asked to perform when the public radio show "Whad'Ya Know?" came to Carbondale, Ill. She played fiddle tunes.

She also played in the orchestra for her high school's recent production of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying."

However, the two-time state junior fiddle champion, honor roll student and winner of an International Leadership Award has found something she doesn't excel at yet: soccer.

She tried out for the high school soccer team earlier in the spring but was cut. She's still unhappy because she loves soccer.

This was the first year the 14-year-old Schoenberger was eligible to compete in the Paducah Symphony Orchestra's Young Artist Competition. Her co-winner, Fairchild, won the top prize at the 1998 National Federation of Music Centennial Solo Performance Competition in Chicago and has performed in Salzburg, Austria, and in Paris.