Faculty Recital Features Guest Artists, Works by Brahms, Faure, Gimenez

January 29, 2003

DELAWARE, OHIO -- The Ohio Wesleyan University Department of Music will present faculty members Nancy Gamso, clarinet, and Tracy Cowden, piano, with guest artists Nora Carter Calvert, violin; Deborah Barrett Price, viola; and Sabrina Lackey, cello in recital on Sunday, Feb. 2, at 7 p.m. in Sanborn Hall's Jemison Auditorium. Please note the time change from the usual evening recitals at OWU.

The program will include the Trio Op. 114 in A Minor for clarinet, piano, and cello by Johannes Brahms, the Quartet No. 1 in C Minor for piano, violin, viola, and cello by Gabriel Fauré, and an aria from GerÑnimo Giménez's zarzuela Sierras de Granada, which was arranged for the five performers by Cowden.

French, German, and Spanish musical traditions are showcased in this program of works written during the last 24 years of the nineteenth century. The Brahms trio was inspired by the lyrical and technical prowess of clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld, whom Brahms consulted about the capabilities of the instrument before composing both this trio and the quintet for clarinet and string quartet in the summer of 1891. Gabriel Fauré completed most of his compositions while on summer vacation from his position as choirmaster and assistant to Saint-Saëns at the Madeleine church; this quartet was premiered in 1880. Fauré's mastery of counterpoint and harmony, refined during years as both student and teacher at the Paris Conservatoire, appear throughout the dramatic outer movements of Quartet No. 1, and they are playfully balanced by the second movement scherzo. The program's finale is a tango from Giménez's zarzuela, which was premiered in 1900. Zarzuela, the uniquely Spanish form of operetta, is a genre which has been featured at OWU several times in performance, due to the dedication of associate professor Marilyn Nims, who has performed music from zarzuelas in several recitals and translated works for opera theater performances.

This concert brings together five seasoned chamber musicians, all of whom are on the faculty of the Chamber Music Connection, Inc. Nancy Gamso is Professor of Music at Ohio Wesleyan University, where she has taught all applied woodwinds and a variety of music courses since 1991. With pianist Tracy Cowden, she recently recorded a CD, Blackwood and Silver, featuring music for flute with piano and clarinet with piano, which will be released this spring. Cowden is currently Assistant Professor at OWU, where she teaches applied and class piano and serves as departmental staff accompanist. Deborah Barrett Price is the founder and Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Connection, Inc., and she teaches violin and viola at Denison University, where she is a member of the resident faculty string quartet. Nora Carter Calvert, violinist, returned to Columbus two years ago from the Chicago area, where she was the director of six orchestras at Granger Middle School in the Naperville, Illinois school system. Ms. Sabrina Lackey is currently a member of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, the Wheeling Symphony, and the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra; she also serves as adjunct professor of cello and director of the Kenyon Chamber String Ensemble at Kenyon College.

The concert is free and open to the public. For more information, call the OWU Music Department at 740-368-3700.