March 11, 2010

School of Music to host ‘Inside the Bachs’

by Andrea Hahn

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- The School of Music at Southern Illinois University Carbondale ushers in spring with “Inside the Bachs,” a weekend of musical performances acting as preview for the new-music festival Outside the Box.

All performances are free of charge.

Here’s what’s coming:

Friday, March 19

• Eric Lenz with the Luther College Early Music Ensemble, 7:30 p.m. at the Old Baptist Foundation Recital Hall

Lenz, assistant professor of cello at SIUC, welcomes the Luther College Early Music Ensemble for a faculty and guest recital.

Lenz teaches cello, chamber music, harmony and counterpoint at SIUC, and maintains an active performance schedule as well. A member of the Southern Illinois Chamber Music Society and a founding member of Neoteric, an eclectic new-music ensemble with a broad repertoire of music dating to the Middle Ages, Lenz also has performances at such venues as Carnegie Hall to his credit.

Luther College, in Decorah, Iowa, maintains a strong music program, offering an array of musical specializations that includes historical musicology as well as several performance specializations. The college’s early music ensembles include the choral and instrumental Collegium Musicum, which specializes in music of the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods.

This performance offers the audience an opportunity to hear music dating back to the era of knights and castles and chivalry.

Saturday, March 20

• Guest artists John Sampen and Mark Bunce present “Mysterious Morning,” 4 p.m. at Altgeld Hall, Room 112.

Sampen, a saxophonist, and Bunce, a composer/engineer, bring a multi-media program to SIUC for this performance. The duo, based at Bowling Green University, bring their sound and sight experience to venues across the country and in Europe and Canada.

Saturday, March 20, 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, March 21, 5 p.m.

• “Inside the Bachs” at the Old Baptist Foundation Recital Hall, celebrating the 325th birthdays of composers Bach, Handel and Scarlatti, featuring School of Music faculty and students as well as guest musicians.

These performances features antique instruments including harpsichord and baroque violin. Baroque, in music, is a term denoting compositions created during the 17th and early 18th centuries characterized by counterpoint and fugue. Bach, Handel and Scarlatti are all Baroque composers. Baroquemusic.org defines Baroque music as that which “expresses … the fundamental order of the universe, yet is always lively and tuneful.”

SIUC faculty musicians for these performances include: Douglas Worthen, flute and traverso; Edward Benyas, oboe; Eric Lenz, cello; Michael Barta, violin; and Aurélien Pétillot, viola.

SIUC students included in the performance are: Izabel Zamrzygki, flute (Antioch); Meng-Chun Chien, piano (Taiwan); Alexandre Francois, cello (Kankakee); James Applegate, traverso (Fort Walton Beach, Fla.); and Rene Rybolt, soprano (Berne, Ind.).

Guest performers include: Martha Stiehl and Gabriel Schuford, harpsichord, Jubal Fulks and Spencer Martin, baroque violin and Elizabeth Pétillot, soprano.