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Vermeer Quartet to perform fourth concert in Slee/Beethoven cycle
By SUE WUETCHER
Reporter Editor
The Grammy-nominated Vermeer Quartet, considered one of the world's finest music ensembles since its formation in 1969 at the Marlboro Music Festival, will perform the fourth concert in the Slee/Beethoven String Quartet Cycle at 8 p.m. Feb. 7 in Slee Concert Hall, North Campus.
The fifth concert in the cycle will be performed at 8 p.m. Feb. 28 in Slee by the Ives Quartet, which has earned critical and popular acclaim for the depth and diversity of its programming.
Tickets for both concerts are $12 for general admission, $9 for UB faculty/staff/alumni, WNED members with card and senior citizens, and $5 for students.
Other artists scheduled to perform during events presented by the Department of Music during the month of February are organist Timothy Olsen, trombonist Alain Trudel and UB faculty members Movses Pogossian, Tony Arnold and Jonathan Golove,
Although the Vermeer Quartet was nominated for a Grammy Award for its CD of Haydn's "The Seven Last Words of Christ," the ensemble is no stranger to Beethoven. The quartet has received accolades for its performances from Chicago to Washington. In addition to Buffalo, this season's touring will take the group to a number of U.S. cities including Cleveland, where it will perform its third Beethoven cycle concert—a project spanning six years. Last year, the ensemble completed a two-year engagement performing the Beethoven cycle under the auspices of the Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music.
The quartet offers an impressive variety of repertoire, featuring not only the standard classics, but many less familiar compositions as well, including new works for string quartet, many of which are written for the Vermeer. Their numerous recordings include the entire Beethoven cycle, plus works by Schubert, Dvorak, Mendelssohn, Verdi, Brahms and Tchaikovsky.
The members of the Vermeer Quartet have been resident artists on the faculty of Northern Illinois University at DeKalb since 1970.
The Ives Quartet has captivated audiences from San Francisco to New York, Taiwan to London. Committed to presenting the full scope of the string quartet literature, its repertoire ranges from recognized classics and neglected masterpieces of the past to new commissions and distinctive collaborations with guest artists.
The quartet's Feb. 28 concert will feature a pre-concert talk with the artists at 7:15 p.m. The quartet also will present a reading session of UB graduate composers' works at 2 p.m. Feb. 27, and a string/chamber music master class at noon on Feb. 28. All of these pre-concert events will take place in Baird Recital Hall, 250 Baird Hall, North Campus, and are free and open to the public.
The Ives Quartet is a seasoned ensemble. Every member is an acclaimed performer on his or her instrument, having earned distinction with other renowned chamber music ensembles, including the Chester Quartet, the Boston Composers' String Quartet, the New England Piano Quartette and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. The variety and breadth in each artist's background contributes to the ensemble's unique sound.
Formerly in residence at Stanford University as the Stanford String Quartet since 1983, the quartet departed the university in 1998 to seek greater artistic independence and now is a fully independent touring and recording ensemble.
Buffalo organ enthusiasts may recall Timothy Olsen as a featured artist on the Slee Hall Fisk organ a few years ago when he performed as part of Eastman Organists Day, an annual event that showcases advanced students of the Eastman School of Music's prestigious organ studio. Now, with the First Prize at the 2002 National Young Artists Competition under his belt, Olsen will return to the Fisk organ to perform a solo recital at 8 p.m. Feb. 6.
Slee will host the 8th Annual Eastman Organists Day at 8 p.m. Feb. 21 featuring four up-and-coming organists from the Eastman school.
Tickets for both concerts are $5
Olsen began his study of the organ at the age of 13, and went on to receive a bachelor of music degree from Concordia College. He is finishing his doctoral studies at Eastman, where he received a master's degree in organ performance and literature, and a master's degree in theory pedagogy.
He is serving as acting university organist of Cornell University until 2005, filling in for Annette Richards, who is on sabbatical. A CD he recorded for the Naxos label will be released at the national American Guild of Organists convention, being held in July in Los Angeles.
Modern music lovers will have the rare opportunity to hear Kurtág's "Kafka-Fragments" when violinist Movses Pogossian and soprano Tony Arnold present the Buffalo premiere of the work as the highlight of their faculty recital at 8 p.m. Feb. 10 in Slee.
Nearly an hour long, "Kafka-Fragments" is comprised of 40 short pieces grouped into four sections and based on text by Franz Kafka, which will be discussed in a pre-concert lecture with the artists at 7:15 p.m. Pogossian also will perform works for solo violin by Augusta Read Thomas and Leif Segerstam to round out the program.
Tickets are $5; UB students showing a valid ID are admitted free.
Since making his critically acclaimed American debut with the Boston Pops performing the Tchaikovsky "Violin Concerto" in 1990, Pogossian has embarked on multi-faceted career as a soloist, avid chamber musician, enthusiastic propagate of new music and sought-after teacher. In 1989, he was the first Soviet musician who received a fellowship at the world-renowned Tanglewood Music Festival in Massachusetts, where he was awarded Boston Symphony Orchestra's Pierre Mayer Award for outstanding musicianship.
Pogossian is visiting artist teacher at UB, where he is a member of the Baird Piano Trio. He also is on the faculty at Wayne State University in Detroit.
Clarity, depth, imagination and breadth of experience mark the performances of Arnold, whose interpretation of the contemporary repertoire is gaining worldwide recognition. In 2001, she became the only vocalist ever to be awarded First Prize in the International Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition, the oldest and most important competition for performers of contemporary music. That same year, she also won First Prize in the Louise D. McMahon International Music Competition, whose mission is "to identify mature artists of exceptional communicative skills." Arnold, who received a bachelor's degree in voice from Oberlin College and a master's degree in orchestral conducting from Northwestern University, is serving her first year on the UB music faculty.
A quintet of musicians—among them Arnold—will join cellist Jonathan Golove for his faculty recital at 8 p.m. Feb. 19 in Slee. The unique program will feature music of the Americas, as well as Ravel's exotic "Chansons madécasses." In addition to Arnold and Golove's wife and fellow cellist, Mary Artmann, UB faculty members Stephen Manes, Cheryl Gobbetti Hoffman and Jacob Greenberg will assist Golove in the performances.
Tickets are $5; UB students showing a valid ID are admitted free.
A native of Los Angeles Golove serves as assistant professor of music at UB, and has been featured as a soloist with both the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Slee Sinfonietta, UB's professional chamber orchestra in residence. He is also active as an electric cellist, both as a recitalist and in the field of improvised music.
Golove received his doctorate as a composer, and his works have been performed throughout North America and Europe. His opera (in progress), "Red Harvest," was commissioned by the European Academy of Music and received its premiere in Festival of Lyric Art of Aix-en-Provence in 1998.
An accomplished cellist, he was featured as soloist in Morton Feldman's "Cello and Orchestra" with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, performed Gubaidulina's "Detto II" for cello and ensemble with the Slee Sinfonietta, and played the Theremin cello along with Artmann in the Sinfonietta's historical performance of Varèse's "Ecuatorial" last season.
The professional career of multi-faceted musician Alain Trudel began as a trombonist at age 15, but has since included duties as a conductor, composer, arranger and educator. As part of residency in the Lancaster School District, he will appear at UB on Feb. 25 for two events, both free and open to the public: a master class, beginning at 4:30 p.m. in Slee and a concert featuring works by UB graduate composers at 8 p.m. in Baird Recital Hall.
Trudel was the first trombonist to win the International Stepping Stone competition, the young soloist competition of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Mildred Dixon-Holme prize, as well as the prestigious Virginia Parker prize, honoring Canada's most promising young talent. Since then, he has been invited to perform in recital, as soloist with orchestras, and at festivals all over the world.
Tickets to Department of Music concerts may be obtained in the Slee Hall box office from 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, in the UB Center for the Arts box office from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and at all Ticketmaster outlets