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Music department announces concerts
By PHILIP REHARD
Reporter Contributor
UB and Western New York concertgoers will have an opportunity to hear an amazing musical partnership when violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and guitarists Sergio and Odair Assad perform together at 3 p.m. Feb. 11 in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall, North Campus, as part of the Slee/Visiting Artist Series.
The concert is among the musical offerings to be presented by the Department of Music during February. Also on the schedule are Eastman Organists Day, the fourth and fifth concerts in the annual Slee/Beethoven String Quartet Cycle performed by the Alexander String Quartet, a recital featuring UB faculty members and pianist and vocal coach David Breitman, and the sixth concert in faculty member Stephen Manes' presentation of the entire cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas.
Guitarist Sergio Assad writes that he and his brother, Odair, have collaborated with many great artists. "But no other partnership has been more fruitful or rewarding than our association with Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg," he says.
The trio will perform at UB a program of music ranging from baroque to contemporary.
Tickets are $20 for general admission; $15 for UB faculty/staff/alumni, senior citizens and WNED members with card; and $8 for students.
All prolific recording artists, the Assads and Salerno-Sonnenberg partnered for a 2000 Nonesuch recording that featured a collection of pieces based on traditional and Gypsy folk tunes from around the world. Since that recording, the trio has made three highly successful tours of the United States, displaying unique chemistry, humor and stunning virtuosity.
Salerno-Sonnenberg burst onto the music scene in 1981, as the youngest recipient ever of the Walter W. Naumburg International Violin Competition, and has since remained in the media spotlight as a sought-after artist who has performed with many of the world's greatest conductors and orchestras.
The Brazilian-born Assad brothers have set the benchmark for all guitarists by creating a new standard of guitar innovation, ingenuity and expression, and have played a major role in creating and introducing new music for two guitars. Their repertoire includes original music composed by Sergio Assad and his reworking of folk and jazz music, as well as Latin music of almost every style. Their standard classical repertoire includes transcriptions of the great Baroque keyboard literature of Bach, Rameau and Scarlatti, and adaptations of works by such diverse figures as Gershwin, Ginastera and Debussy.
Advanced students of the Eastman School of Music's prestigious organ studio will perform on the Fisk organ in Lippes Concert Hall during Eastman Organists Day, to be held at 8 p.m. Feb. 2. Tickets are $5.
Rudy de Vos, Ruth Draper, JooSoo Son and Thatcher Lyman—students of Eastman faculty Hans Davidsson and David Higgs—will perform works from the 17th to the 20th centuries.
The Alexander String Quartet will present the fourth and fifth concerts of the annual Slee/Beethoven String Quartet Cycle at 8 p.m. Feb. 23 and at 3 p.m. Feb. 25. Both concerts will take place in Lippes Concert Hall.
Tickets for each concert are priced at $12 for general admission; $9 for UB faculty/staff/alumni, senior citizens and WNED members with card, and $5 for students.
The Alexander Quartet also will present a master class at 1 p.m. Feb. 24 in Baird Recital Hall, 250 Baird Hall, North Campus. The class will be free and open to the public.
The Alexander String Quartet, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2006, has performed in the major music capitals on four continents, securing its standing among the world's premier ensembles. Widely admired for its interpretations of Beethoven, Mozart and Shostakovich, the quartet also has established itself as an important advocate of new music through more than 25 commissions and numerous premiere performances.
It became the first string quartet to win the Concert Artists Guild Competition, and in 1985, captured international attention as the first and only American quartet to win the London International String Quartet Competition, receiving both the jury's highest award and the Audience Prize.
Now based in San Francisco, the quartet serves as ensemble in residence of San Francisco Performances and as directors of the Morrison Chamber Music Center at the School of Music and Dance in the College of Creative Arts at San Francisco State University.
By invitation of the Department of Music vocal faculty, pianist and vocal coach David Breitman will be in residency at UB Feb. 4 through Feb. 6 and will present a variety of events for both music students and concertgoers. In keeping with a Schubert/Beethoven theme, these workshops and performances will take place in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall. Audience members will be seated on stage with the performer to recreate the parlor-room atmosphere and intimacy of a "Schubertiad."
Breitman, associate professor of historical performance at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, will conduct a vocal master class with students at 7 p.m. Feb. 4 and open vocal rehearsals with students and faculty at noon on Feb. 5. Both workshops are free and open to the public.
A performer on both piano and fortepiano as soloist, collaborator and accompanist, Breitman also will take part in a recital with UB faculty members Tony Arnold, soprano, and Alexander Hurd, baritone, at 8 p.m. Feb. 5. The program will feature the music of Schubert and Beethoven. Tickets are $5 for general admission and free for UB students with ID.
On Feb. 6, Breitman and UB piano students will accompany UB vocal students during a free noon Brown Bag Concert.
Later that day, Breitman will conduct a piano master class with students at 1:30 p.m. The class will be free and open to the public.
Pianist Stephen Manes will perform the sixth concert in his third-ever presentation of the entire cycle of Beethoven sonatas at 8 p.m. Feb. 19 in Lippes Concert Hall.
The concert is entitled "Das Lebewohl" for the famous sonata that is featured on the program.
Tickets are $10 for general admission and $5 for students.
A longtime UB faculty member and former chair of the Department of Music, Manes has appeared numerous times with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and has performed with the Pittsburgh, National, Detroit, Baltimore and Denver symphonies and at the Boston Esplanade under such conductors as Michael Tilson Thomas, Neville Marriner, Arthur Fiedler, Christopher Keene, Semyon Bychkov and Maximiano Valdes.
Tickets for all Department of Music concerts can be obtained at the Slee Hall box office from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, at the Center for the Arts box office from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and at all Ticketmaster outlets, including Ticketmaster.com.