The Yellow Moon Gyroid Concert Series kicks off its third season on Sept. 14 with (from left to right) Cellist Wei Denton, pianist Reiko Schoen, along with SIU Carbondale graduate students violinist Gabriel Vieira and (below) Francismar Silva on viola. (Photos provided)
September 01, 2026
SIU’s Yellow Moon Gyroid Concert Series opens Sept. 14
CARBONDALE, Ill. — The Yellow Moon Gyroid Concert Series at Southern Illinois University Carbondale kicks off its third season on Monday, Sept. 14, featuring Wei Denton, a cellist with the Chicago Philharmonic and Northwest Indiana Symphony.
The free, public concert begins at 5 p.m. in Morris Library’s third-floor rotunda.
The performance also features two SIU Carbondale School of Music string master’s students — Gabriel Vieira and Francismar Silva — and concert series co-founder Reiko Schoen on piano.
Varied selections
Vieira, who studies violin performance under professor of violin Michael Barta, will perform two unaccompanied violin solo pieces — “Andante” from German composer Johann Sebastian Bach’s second violin sonata and “Caprice No. 14,” by Italian composer Niccolò Paganini.
“Both pieces explore the violin’s ability to suggest and sustain multiple lines simultaneously, though in very different ways: Bach through intricate contrapuntal writing, and Paganini through virtuosic double stops,” Vieira said.
Silva, who is in viola performance studies under Rosanna Cauti, an assistant professor of practice, will perform two pieces for viola and piano — “Three Pieces” by Brazilian composer, César Guerra-Peixe and “Morpheus,” by renowned violist and British composer Rebecca Clarke.
“Guerra-Peixe’s pieces were written during his nationalist period,” Silva said. “The work reflects influences from Northeastern Brazilian popular and folkloric music. The piece “Morpheus” is inspired by the Greek god Dream. The piece has a dreamlike, introspective, and lyrical character, influenced by Impressionism.”
The program concludes with “Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 49 by German composer Felix Mendelssohn, which Schoen said is “one of musicians’ favorite trios of any generation.” Denton will play the cello with Vieira on violin and Schoen on piano.
The trio promises perfect combinations between violin and cello above the full driving energy on the piano in the first movement, with Mendelson’s characteristic lyricism in the second movement, playfully chasing each other in scherzo (fast, upbeat) in the third movement and in the last movement, a powerful, stormy striving for triumph ending in D Major, Schoen said.
There will be a hybrid of printed concert programs for the concert along with a QR code for a print-free way to follow along available at the event.
Grateful for musicians, support
Schoen, who co-founded the series in fall 2024, said she is “extremely grateful to the current musicians and to all the musicians who shared their love of music in the past two seasons.” She added that contributions by donors have helped to keep the concert series going, and that the series “has been established remarkably well.”
Schoen is a member of the Federation of National Music Clubs. She is also a member of the SIU Symphony Orchestra.
The series honors Schoen’s late husband, SIU Carbondale professor Alan Schoen, who discovered the gyroid in 1968 while working for NASA. The rotunda is home to Yellow Moon Gyroid made in Schoen’s honor by algorithmic artist Jesse Louis-Rosenberg.
A gyroid is an infinitely connected periodic minimal surface with no straight lines; a minimal surface has the smallest area possible within a given boundary. Schoen, a physicist, mathematician and computer scientist, taught at SIU Carbondale from 1973 to 1996.
For information regarding the performance or becoming a yearly sponsor for any amount, contact Reiko Schoen at reikotaka@gmail.com. For information about the School of Music, visit the School of Music website.