Muse Flashes
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Please send arts news items to MuseFlashes, in care of Kathleen Mellen, Box 299, Northampton, MA 01061, or email them to kmellen@gazettenet.com.
Music at UMass
Jan. 24: A faculty violin concert with Elizabeth Chang on violin and Judith Gordon on piano begins at 8 p.m. at the Bezanson Recital Hall at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. On the program: Hindemith's Violin Sonata Op. 31, No. 2; Mozart's Violin & Piano Sonata K. 454 and Saint Saens' Violin Sonata No. 1 in D minor, Op. 75.
Jan. 27: A faculty recital will take place at 8 p.m. with Juilliard-trained cellist Astrid Schween and Randall Hodgkinson, guest pianist. On the program: Chopin's "Polonaise Brillante" and "Nocturne in C-Sharp minor," Britten's "Sonata" and Beethoven's "Sonata in A Major."
Schween has performed extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. As a member of the world-renowned Lark Quartet, she performed at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Lockenhaus and the Moscow Beethoven Festival. With the Lark, she garnered the Shostakovich Gold Medal in Russia and the Naumburg Chamber Music Award. Since 2001, Schween has toured nationwide with pianist Gary Hammond (Schween-Hammond Duo) and has appeared frequently with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. She has conducted master classes in cello and chamber music at the Juilliard School, the Curtis Institute, The Hartt School, Dartmouth College, the Harid Conservatory, Florida State University, Georgia State University, Columbus State University and Ohio Universities.
Hodgkinson, a faculty member of the New England Conservatory of Music, is a member of the Boston Chamber Music Society. He is a soloist with the orchestras of Atlanta, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland and New York. He recorded solo music of Donald Martino and Roger Sessions and the concertos of Gardner Read and Morton Gould.
Jan. 28: "A Winter's Journey: Schubert's 'Winterreise' " will be performed at 8 p.m. by UMass professors William Hite, tenor, and Gilles Vonsattel, piano.
Hite has performed extensively in the Boston area with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Cecelia, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Boston Early Music Festival, Boston Baroque and Emmanuel Music. Recent engagements include his Carnegie Hall debut in "Messiah" with Musica Sacra and his Kennedy Center debut with the Washington Chorus in Haydn's "Paukenmesse."
Vonsattel won a 2008 Avery Fisher Career Grant and the top prizes at the 2002 Naumburg and the 2006 Geneva International Piano Competitions. In July 2010, he made his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and at Tanglewood. A former member of the Chamber Music Society Two, he will be an artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for the 2012-13 season and has played with Yo-Yo Ma, Kim Kashkashian, Ida Kavafian, Heinz Holliger, Cho-Liang Lin and Paul Neubauer.
Jan. 30: A faculty concert "The Viola-Take Two" with Kathryn Lockwood, viola, and Estella Olevsky, piano begins at 8 p.m. On the program: Music of Beethoven, Brahms and Astor Piazzolla.
Feb. 4: A saxophone master class and concert will be held with guest artist Claude Delangle, a professor at the Paris Conservatory and world-renowned saxophonist, and Nadine Shank and Scott Bailey.
The master class will take place at 2:30 p.m. in room 44 of the UMass Fine Arts Center. The concert takes place at 8 p.m. in Bezanson Recital Hall. There is no charge to observe the master class.
Feb. 7: A concert of new works composed and performed by UMass jazz graduate students, jazz faculty and the UMass Jazz Ensemble I will take place at 8 p.m. in Bezanson Recital Hall. This concert is free.
Tickets for all other concerts cost $10; $3 for UMass students; $5 for other students, seniors and children. They may be purchased online at www.umasstix.com/musicanddance, at the Fine Arts Center box office, by calling 545-2511, or at the door.
