Skinner Hall presents musical spring season

Gulfem Demiray Assistant Arts Editor

This spring the Martel Recital Hall is welcoming Vassar students, alumnae/i, parents, faculty and the Poughkeepsie community to experience the vibrant and colorful tunes coming from Skinner Hall of Music. The Miscellany News presents part one of a two-part preview of the March and April concerts being held this semester.

Music Faculty Recital Come and celebrate a belated birthday of the contrapuntal king of the Baroque period, Johann Sebastian Bach, by listening to his organ choral preludes from the Leipzig Autograph, “The Great Eighteen,” performed by Vassar’s renowned College Organist Gail Archer. It is an ideal opportunity to see Archer, an international concert organist and recording artist, perform her repertoire. Friday, March 28, 8 p.m.

Vassar College Women’s Chorus “Music from Around the World”Vassar’s Women’s Chorus will give a concert featuring a sacred choral music repertoire from their recent spring break tour of Spain. Conducted by the Director of Choral Activities Christine R. Howlett, the Women’s Chorus will sing harmonies of the Renaissance composer Palestrina, baroque lines by Gasparini and romantic tunes by Mendelssohn, as well as a challenging piece by the contemporary American composer Virgil Thomson, “Seven Choruses of the Medea by Euripides.” Saturday, March 29, 8 p.m.

Special Faculty Event Get lost in the innovation of two French impressionist masters, Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy, performed by Professor Emeritus of Music Richard Wilson and Professor of Music Blanca Uribe. Uribe, winner of many international competitions, and Wilson, a recipient of numerous awards who has taught at Vassar since 1966, will be playing on two pianos. Sunday, March 30, 3 p.m.

Special Guest Event If you like listening to new genres or ethnic music, you shouldn’t miss out on Gamelan Galak Tika, a 25-member ensemble from Boston that studies and performs traditional and modern Balinese music and dance. Balinese music is characterized by the colorful and metallic tunes of percussion instruments, bamboo flutes and fiddles, creating eastern melodies fused within the sound of western instruments. Saturday, April 5, 3 p.m.

Music Faculty Recital One way you can relax before starting to finish your homework is by listening to a program of German lieder performed by George Sherman Dickinson, Professor of Music Todd Crow, mezzo-soprano music department Adjunct Artists Mary Nessinger, and bass-baritone Robert Osborne. The performance will feature vocal duets and solo piano pieces by Mozart, Schubert, Schumann and Brahms. The Mozart selections in the program are taken from some of his most-loved operas, such as “Don Giovanni” and “Così Fan Tutte.” Sunday, April 6, 3 p.m.

Vassar College Music Colloquium “Handel’s Musical Postcards from Italy”Ellen Harris, a Professor of Music at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author of Handel as Orpheus, a critical investigation of Handel’s cantatas, will visit Vassar and give a lecture on the German Baroque composer George Frideric Handel, famous for his operas, oratorios and concerti grossi. Perfect if you are interested in Handel and Baroque music. Thursday, April 10, 5 p.m.

Senior Recital, Soprano Cara Grieco ’08 will perform an eclectic program featuring the music of Mozart, Turina, Berlioz, Quilter and Sondheim, accompanied on the piano by vocal coach Gregg Michalak. She will present a collection of music that she has worked on throughout her four years at Vassar, featuring a wide variety of composers as well as styles and pieces in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese.

“I have picked my favorite pieces, those that I am eager to present to my friends and family,” Grieco said. Saturday April 12, 1:30 p.m.

Senior Recital,Richard Pinero ’08 will be concluding his guitar education with the Vassar music department with a program featuring Bach, Mozart, Albeniz and Tarrega, as well as his own work, “The Invisible Color.” Saturday, April 12, 4 p.m.

Vassar College Choir, “Past and Present” Conducted by Christine R. Howlett, the program will feature music by Monteverdi, Byrd and contemporary American composer Eric Whitacre, whose works have made a huge impact on choral music in the United States. The concert pieces were chosen with the idea of old and new coming together, putting the Renaissance-style works by William Byrd and Claudio Monteverdi together with those of Eric Whitacre, the current darling of American choral music, who uses techniques borrowed from Byrd and Monteverdi in his own music. Saturday, April 12, 8 p.m.

Vassar Camerata Founded in 2004, Vassar Camerata is the College’s only Baroque ensemble. The group performs all types of music from before 1800, using modern instruments and 18th-century performance practices. Sebastian Weinberg ’09 and Mary Elizabeth Alexander ’09 are the ensemble’s current conductors. Sunday, April 13, 3 p.m.

Vassar College Jazz Ensemble Founded by conductor James Osborn in 1984, Vassar College Jazz Ensemble is a 22-piece ensemble of student musicians playing saxophones, trumpets, trombones, piano, double bass, guitar and drums. If you like jazz and you haven’t yet heard the College Jazz Ensemble, you should try to make it to this concert. Friday, April 18, 8 p.m.

Senior Recital, Andrew Atkin ’08 will present an entertaining guitar program featuing pieces with strong and moving content, accompanied by Gordon Millsaps ’08. His years spent at Vassar will be reflected in his performance, which features works by Hovhaness, Bach and Castelnuovo-Tedesco, as well as a repertoire of Greek solo pieces. He will also perform a piece of his own composition on the electric guitar. “This will essentially be the culmination of the time I’ve spent thus far—not only plucking away mindlessly, but learning, practicing and creating,” said Atkin, who has been playing the guitar for 13 years. Saturday, April 19, 1:30 p.m.

Senior Recital, Christopher Flannery-McCoy ’08 will present his repertoire before he graduates, assisted by music department Adjunct Artist Anna Polonsky. He will begin his performance with contemporary German composer Stefan Wolpe’s “Solo Piece for Trumpet” and three piano-accompanied concertos by Nepomuk Hummel, Arutunian and Mozart. He will also perform solo piano pieces by Chopin, Grieg and Beethoven.

“I love the physicality of playing the trumpet—the amount of energy that can be expelled playing it, the way some melodies sound when played on it—so it almost feels like an extension of my voice,” Flannery-McCoy said. Saturday, April 19, 4 p.m.

Earth Day Concert Appreciate Mother Earth with a musical celebration of Earth Day by listening to members of the music faculty, guest soloists, Vassar College Choir and Women’s Chorus, and a cappella Festival Chamber and Treble Choirs. Saturday, April 19, 8 p.m.

Vassar Mahagonny Ensemble The Vassar Mahagonny Ensemble is a student-run contemporary music ensemble conducted by Lidiya Yankovskaya ’08. This semester, they will perform Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring Suite,” in addition to premiering two new pieces: “Madlibs,” a concerto for clarinet and string orchestra written by Timothy Susse ’08, and “Neon in Daylight” for a wind ensemble, by Benjamin Krauss ’05, a current student at Queens College who has recently taught harmony classes at Vassar.

“We hope that the audience will experience something new and hopefully bring an open mind to try to understand the unusual works which we present,” Yankovskaya said. Sunday, April 20, 3 p.m.