Kandinsky Trio Presents Concert with Friends
SALEM, Va. —The Kandinsky Trio will end its 2005-2006 season with a concert titled “Trio with Friends” at Roanoke College on Saturday, March 18 at 8 p.m. in the Olin Theater. Tickets are $20 for the general public and $12 for students and senior citizens. For information on the concert or ticket purchases, please contact the Olin Box Office Monday through Friday from 1-4 p.m. at (540) 375-2333 or online at www. roanoke.edu/tickets.
For the finale of its 18th season, the Trio will present a concert devoted to chamber music for mixed ensembles with award-winning guest artists and valley favorites soprano Nancy McDuffie and flutist Alycia Hugo.
Alan Weinstein, the Trio’s cellist, and Hugo will open the program with “The Jet Whistle” by Heitor Villa-Lobos. Hugo, McDuffie and Trio pianist Elizabeth Bachelder will perform Andre Previn’s “The Giraffes Go to Hamburg,” a contemporary setting of words from Isak Dineson’s “Out of Africa.” A showpiece based on famous American tunes for flute, piano and violin, with the Trio’s Benedict Goodfriend playing this part, by Franz Doppler will close the first half. After intermission, Maurice Ravel’s “Songs of Madagascar” will be performed by McDuffie, Hugo, Weinstein and Bachelder. The great Sonata for Violin and Piano in D Minor by Johannes Brahms, played by Goodfriend and Bachelder, will close the program.
The Kandinsky Trio has performed worldwide in more than 175 cities. London’s Music and Vision described the Trio’s newest compact disc, “In Foreign Lands,” released in 2003, as “one of the year’s best chamber music recordings.” The Trio is also described as “spirited and persuasive” by the American Record Guide, and “virtuosity, with spine-tingling precision” by the Cincinnati Enquirer.
The Trio is one of only six piano trios ever to win the prestigious Chamber Music America Residency Award. In 1999, Senator Charles Robb (D-Va.) chose the Trio as Virginia’s representative at the Kennedy Center’s State Days series. The ensemble has also received awards from the Theodore Presser and Carpenter foundations for extending artistry and visionary residency ideas to under-served communities.
McDuffie’s extensive list of performances includes dramatic roles, solo vocal concerts and numerous operatic and oration roles. She has been featured onstage with Opera Roanoke, the Roanoke Symphony, the New River Valley Symphony, and the Virginia Tech Chamber Music Series, among others. McDuffie incorporates a variety of musical styles into her performances.
Hugo has pursued a varied and interesting professional career as an orchestra member and recitalist since completing her Master of Music in flute performance at the New England Conservatory in Boston. She is a four-time winner of the National Flute Association Convention Performers Professional Flutist Competition and a two-time winner of the national Flute Association Professional Flute Choir Performer Competition. She has performed as soloist with several orchestras in New England and currently is serving as principal flutist with the Roanoke and Lynchburg Symphony Orchestras.
Roanoke College, the country’s second oldest Lutheran-related college, is an independent, co-educational, four-year liberal arts college. Roanoke is one of just 270 colleges nationwide with a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honor society. The Princeton Review names Roanoke as one of the “best in the Southeast.” Roanoke’s 1,900 students represent 41 states and 25 foreign countries.
