7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 3, 2017;
Kilworth Memorial Chapel
TACOMA, Wash. – In the midst of winter this February, Tacoma audiences are invited to enjoy the warmth, light, and, yes, the inspiration of 2017’s first Jacobsen Series concert: An Evening of Chamber Music.
University of Puget Sound’s School of Music artists have chosen a lively program that combines the highly original Romantic music of Frenchman Gabriel Fauré with the contrasting moods of works by the Hungarian Béla Bartók and Russian Sergei Prokofiev.
An Evening of Chamber Music will take place in Kilworth Memorial Chapel on Friday, Feb. 3, starting at 7:30 p.m. The chapel is on N. 18th Street, at the corner of N. Warner Street, in Tacoma. Ticket information and a map of campus are below.
“I’ve wanted to program Faure’s piano quartet for a while—it’s one of my favorites,” said Michael Seregow, visiting assistant professor of piano. “We also chose two 20th-century works that I think will appeal to the audience. Bartók’s rhapsody is highly virtuosic, but it is also based on folk music material. Prokofiev’s sonata is classical in structure, but with much lyrical writing. It was originally written for flute and piano, and later was arranged for violin and piano at the urging of Prokofiev’s friend, the violinist David Oistrakh.”
The concert will feature School of Music musicians Michael Seregow, piano; Maria Sampen, violin; Joyce A. Ramée, viola; and Alistair MacRae, cello.
The evening’s program includes:
Rhapsody No. 2 for Violin and Piano, by Béla Bartók
Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano in D major, Op. 94a, by Sergei Prokofiev
Piano Quartet No. 1 in c minor, Op. 15, by Gabriel Fauré
Fauré’s piano quartet is probably the 19th-century musician’s best-known work and is an example of his success in expanding the language of romanticism in a singular way. The piece was written over three years, during which time Fauré’s fiancée broke off their engagement, an event that British music critic Stephen Johnson suggests influenced the melancholy third movement that follows the playful scherzo in the second. Johnson wrote that Faure’s sense of loss of the woman he had wooed for years is clearly felt in the slower movement, though “the emotion is always nobly restrained, with not even the slightest hint of self-indulgence.”
Chamber music publishers Edition Silvertrust summed up the piano quartet as “in the front rank of such works. Using opposing arpeggios, chords, and runs against the singing of a single instrument or a group of them, and giving the piano an equal role in a rich contrapuntal texture, Fauré created a dazzling variety of tonal effects.”
The Jacobsen Series, named in honor of Leonard Jacobsen, former chair of the piano department at Puget Sound, has been running since 1984. The Jacobsen Series Scholarship Fund awards annual music scholarships to outstanding student performers and scholars. The fund is sustained entirely by season subscribers and ticket sales.
FOR TICKETS: Tickets are available online at tickets.pugetsound.edu, or at Wheelock Information Center, 253.879.3100. Admission is $15 for the general public; $10 for seniors (55+), students, military, and Puget Sound faculty and staff. The concert is free for current Puget Sound students. Group ticket rates are available for parties of 10 or more by calling 253.879.3555 in advance. Any remaining tickets will be available at the door.
For directions and a map of the campus: pugetsound.edu/directions
For accessibility information please contact accessibility@pugetsound.edu or 253.879.3931, or visit pugetsound.edu/accessibility.
Press photos of the four School of Music artists can be downloaded from pugetsound.edu/pressphotos.
Photos on page: From top right: Sergei Prokoviev (U.S. Library of Congress); Gabriel Fauré, by John Singer Sargent (public domain); Béla Bartók, at graduation (public domain).
Tweet this: Out of the deep freeze and into An Evening of Chamber Music @univpugetsound, Fri. Feb 3, 2017 #keepwarm #Tacoma
Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/univpugetsound