Faculty string quartet to perform: Faculty members from SIU Carbondale and Bucknell University will perform Saturday, Jan. 25, at the SIU Old Baptist Foundation, along with pianist Doreen Lee. Performing are (from left) violinist Frank Lakatos, violist Rossana Cauti, violinist Michael Barta and cellist William Cernota. (Photo provided)
January 17, 2025
SIU Chamber Music Society concert is Jan. 25
CARBONDALE, Ill. — A string quartet, comprising faculty from Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s School of Music and featuring pianist Doreen Lee, will perform Saturday, Jan. 25.
SIU faculty Michael Barta and Rossana Cauti will be joined by William Cernota, who has taught SIU students; Frank Lakatos, an SIU alumnus and visiting assistant professor of music at Bucknell University, and Lee, a visiting assistant professor in collaborative piano with the University of Iowa’s School of Music.
The concert is at 7 p.m. at the SIU Old Baptist Foundation. The concert is free for SIU faculty, staff and students; general admission tickets for the public are $15 for adults and $5 for students. The performance is presented by the Southern Illinois Chamber Music Society and the SIU Strings Festival. Contact Cernota at bactocello@gmail.com to receive an advance PDF of the program, notes and song texts.
The performance will include string quartet in A minor, Op. 29 D 804 “Rosamunde” by Austrian composer Franz Schubert and piano quintet in E-flat major, Op. 44 by German composer Robert Schumann.
Violinist Barta, a professor of violin and chamber music at SIU, has performed in 32 countries and regularly teaches master classes at conservatories throughout Europe. Co-founder of the Southern Illinois Chamber Music Society, Barta is assistant concertmaster with the Illinois Symphony and Chamber Orchestra and concertmaster with the Sinfonia da Camera chamber orchestra at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Illinois.
Violist Cauti, upper strings faculty director of strings orchestras at SIU, is an active soloist, chamber musician and a dedicated and frequent orchestral performer, an assistant principal viola with the Pensacola Symphony and Northwest Florida Symphony orchestras. Chair of the Southern Illinois Chamber Music Society, Cauti, who was born in Italy, studied with Barta, primarily on viola, while earning a Master of Music from SIU. She has toured Europe, Asia and South America with several orchestras and is the executive and artistic director of Suoni d’ Abruzzo, the International Chamber Music Festival in Italy.
Cellist Cernota has been a member of the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra since 1982. From 1982 to 1996, he was a substitute cellist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He has held principal cello positions and appeared as soloist with several orchestras in Chicago and the Southern Illinois Music Festival and performed in annual Chicago-based WFMT broadcast recitals with pianist Eric Weimer since 2011.
Lakatos studied with Barta from 2018 to 2022 and earned a Master of Music degree in violin performance from SIU. Both Lakatos and Barta are Hungarian by birth, and each immigrated to the United States in the 1980s. Lakatos also has extensive orchestral experience as a violinist and violist.
In addition to her work at the University of Iowa, Lee has performed in both the United States and internationally and is the pianist of the du Toit/Lee Duo, with flutist Cobus du Toit. She has also taught at Colorado State University and the University of Colorado Boulder.