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More Beethoven on tap, courtesy of Orion
Performance by string quartet, faculty recitals highlight March concerts
By SUE WUETCHER
Reporter Editor
Following the successful Beethoven Marathon weekend with the Tokyo String Quartet earlier this month, the Department of Music will present the Orion String Quartet in the fourth concert of the annual six-concert Slee/Beethoven String Quartet Cycle.
The concert will take place at 8 p.m. March 1 in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall, North Campus.
Advance tickets are $12 for general admission; $9 for UB faculty/staff/alumni, senior citizens and WNED members with card; and $5 for students. Tickets purchased at the door are $20, $15 and $8.
One of the most sought after ensembles in the United States, the Orion String Quartet has earned a reputation for its interpretation of the Beethoven string quartets. In May 2000, the ensemble performed the entire cycle in a series of free concerts at Alice Tully Hall, with additional outreach activities in the five boroughs of New York City.
The members of the quartet—violinists Daniel Phillips and Todd Phillips (brothers who share the first violin chair equally), violist Steven Tenenbom and cellist Timothy Eddy—have subsequently performed the complete Beethoven cycle in Kansas City; Pittsburgh; Deerfield, Mass.; and at Indiana University in Bloomington.
March also is the month for faculty recitals, and the Department of Music will present three concerts featuring UB faculty members.
“Jazz Meets Modern,” the first of the three recitals, will take place at 8 p.m. March 3 in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall. It will feature faculty members Jean Kopperud, clarinet; Jonathan Golove, cello; and James Avery, piano, performing a program that includes pieces by Edwin A Finckel, Stuart Jones and Henryk Mikolaj Górecki.
Tickets for the recital, as well as for all UB faculty recitals, are $5 for general admission and free for UB students with ID.
Avery, currently on a one-year appointment to the UB music faculty as a visiting professor of piano and director of the UB Contemporary Ensemble, studied piano and conducting at the University of Kansas and at Indiana University. A Fulbright scholar, he continued his studies in piano at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg, Germany.
A prize-winner at the International Gaudeamus Competition for Interpreters of Contemporary Music in Holland, he has performed as a pianist and conductor in major festivals for new music worldwide. He has taught on the piano faculty of the University of Iowa, the Hochschule für Musik and the Eastman School of Music. Since 1992, he has served as artistic director of SurPlus, an ensemble for new music based in Freiburg.
Avery also will give a solo recital at 8 p.m. March 25 in Lippes Concert Hall. The program will include the music of Bach, Busoni, Janacek, Debussy and Schubert.
Golove’s career has been marked by its versatility and commitment to the performance of both new and traditional works, as well as improvised music. An assistant professor of music at UB, he has been a featured soloist with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, UB’s Slee Sinfonietta and the New York Virtuoso Singers, and as a baroque cellist with the USC Early Music Ensemble. His summer festival appearances include the Sebago-Long Lake, Rocky Ridge Music Center and Roycroft Chamber Music festivals, as well as numerous festivals devoted to new works, including June in Buffalo and the North American New Music Festival.
An associate professor of music at UB, Kopperud is one of the most versatile and innovative clarinetists performing today, known for her virtuoso performances both in the concert hall and in music theater. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Kopperud has toured internationally as a concert soloist and chamber musician. National acclaim for her performances of Karlheinz Stockhausen's “Harlekin,” a tour de force for dancing clarinetist, led to her debut in Avery Fisher Hall presented by the New York Philharmonic.
She currently is a member of a number of ensembles, among them the New York New Music Ensemble, the Chamber Players of the League of Composers/ISCM, Washington Square Chamber Players, Ensemble 21 and the Omega Ensemble. In addition to her position at UB, she holds a faculty appointment at Juilliard.
The faculty recitals will continue on March 5 with “The Madness of March,” a performance by flutist Cheryl Gobbetti-Hoffman and pianist Catarina Domenici.
The concert will take place at 8 p.m. in Lippes Concert Hall.
The program includes works by Sofia Gubaidulina, Fikret Amirov, Brian Ferneyhough Bela Bartók, Mark Olivieri and Carl Vine.
Noted for her elegant, exuberant performances and an adventurous spirit—and strong commitment to explorations of contemporary flute repertoire—Gobbetti-Hoffman has traveled extensively throughout Europe and continental North America as a teaching artist. An adjunct assistant professor at UB, she is a regular performer with the Slee Sinfonietta and on MidAmerica Music’s popular Solo and Chamber Recital Series in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City,
A former member of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, she has organized a flute advocacy group with the whimsical name of whooosh, and founded Plosion, a student flute ensemble.
Brazilian pianist Domenici earned an MM and a DMA from the Eastman School of Music, where she was awarded the prestigious Performer's Certificate and the Lizie Teege Mason Award for best graduate pianist.
A prize-winner in competitions as a chamber musician and soloist, Domenici currently is on leave from her faculty position at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul at Porto Alegre, Brazil. She is on the faculty at the Chautauqua Festival and the Eastman Community Music School, in addition to the UB music department.
Tickets for all Department of Music concerts can be obtained at the Slee Hall box office, the Center for the Arts box office and at all Ticketmaster outlets, including Ticketmaster.com.