Student Performances Highlight April 6 Chamber Concert
Contact: Joe Carr at (2070 581-3571
ORONO — The UMaine School of Performing Arts’ April 6 chamber music concert at Minsky Recital Hall in the Class of 1944 Building on the Orono campus promises a wide array of chamber music, ranging from jazz to the more serious music of Handel, and even a somber selection from Donald McCullough’s Holocaust Cantata.
Most of the performers are music majors who intend to pursue music teaching jobs after graduation, according to UMaine music instructor and pianist Ginger Yang Hwalek. Hwalek, assisted by UMaine music instructor and cellist Noreen Silver, organized the program and coordinated the student ensembles.
Students have been rehearsing since January for the concert, which constitutes a public final exam, according to Hwalek.
Eleven groups performing as duos, trios, quartets or other small ensembles — more than 50 people altogether — will perform a chamber concert program that brings to the audience music not commonly heard.
“After any chamber concert I’ve put together I get people who comment to me that it was fun to hear music they’ve never heard before,” she says.
Most of the performing groups have fewer than eight players, and for some of the student performers who have played in larger groups like bands or orchestras, this is a new experience. Now, says, Hwalek, they will be responsible for one instrument in many cases. In others, like the clarinet choir or brass choir, they will blend as a common voice.
The Black Bear Men’s Chorus will open the concert. Other ensembles include a baroque string quartet, an organ and soprano duo, a string quartet and baritone group, a clarinet, piano and cello trio, a tenor, cello and piano trio, a woodwind quartet, an organ with two flutes, a jazz combo and the brass and clarinets choirs.
In addition to Handel, the program includes works by Brahms, Gabrieli, Samuel Barber, Tchaikovsky, among others.
The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. Admission is $6.