Dakota Valley Symphony concert features 12-year-old pianist Gaia Daniel

The Dakota Valley Symphony returns for a concert Saturday with a notable new performer, pianist Gaia Daniel, who just won the orchestra’s Young Artists’ Competition.

Daniel is 12 and has accomplished many things classically for her young age. She has won many awards internationally for her performances, including an invitation to perform in a concert at New York City’s Carnegie Hall later this year.

“Gaia takes it one step further, in that she brings maturity and emotion to the playing that one hopes to find in a mature performer,” said Stephen Ramsey, the founding director and conductor of the Dakota Valley Symphony. “And to have that happen in a 12-year-old is amazingly rare.”

Daniel will be performing in two movements from Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Ramsey said it’s a perfect match because of the youthful exuberance that Mendelssohn’s piece offers and because Daniel is “absolutely youthful and exuberant.”

In addition to the work featuring Daniel, the Burnsville-based orchestra will perform William Grant Still’s Symphony No. 4 (The Atocthonous).

“This piece stylistically is very powerful and reflective of the life of African Americans in America,” Ramsey said.

Also on the program will be Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture.

Putting these pieces in the same program was no accident. Ramsey said it’s his mission to give a voice to the music of Black composers by putting American and European composers in the same program “so we get to hear it all together.”

The Dakota Valley Symphony aims to bring welcoming, community-based live performances to the public, he added. During the program, audience members will hear about each piece and what to listen for in hopes of making the concert “a personal experience,” he said.

The concert takes place at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 11, at the Ames Center in Burnsville. A silent auction and other fundraising events will follow the program.