Athens, Ga. – The University of Georgia Hugh Hodgson School of Music and the UGA Performing Arts Center will present an American Chamber Festival from May 20 to 22. Performances are in the Ramsey Concert Hall on May 20 and 21 at 8 p.m., and on May 22 at 3 p.m.Tickets for the May 20 concert are $10. For the May 21 and May 22 concerts, tickets are $30 each. Student tickets for all concerts are $5. Individual tickets or a $60 pass good for all three concerts are available through the Performing Arts Center box office at 706/542-4400 or online at www.uga.edu/pac.
Initiated with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and supported by the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts and the President’s Venture Fund, the festival will feature UGA faculty performers as well as popular artists and include pre-concert lectures.
“This is a wonderful time of year for a chamber festival at UGA,” said Michael Heald, professor of violin in the school of music and director of the festival. “Our superb faculty will be joined by some of the classical music world’s most well-known chamber musicians. The breadth of repertoire being played demonstrates the terrific range of America’s composers over the past 100 years. The audience should delight in being able to experience all this up close in the beautiful setting of Ramsey Hall.”
The weekend kicks off at 8 p.m. on May 20 with members of the Hodgson School of Music faculty performing works by Aaron Copland, Amy Beach, Eric Ewazen and John Stevens. Joshua Bynum, Brandon Craswell, Michael Heald, Kristin Jutras, Jean Martin-Williams, D. Ray McClellan, Maggie Snyder, David Starkweather and David Zerkel will be joined by Peter Miyamoto from the University of Missouri on piano.
Martin Beaver and Clive Greensmith, the first violinist and cellist of the Tokyo String Quartet, will perform on May 21 at 8 p.m. in a concert by the internationally-renowned composer Lera Auerbach, who will join them at the piano. Maggie Snyder will join Beaver and Greensmith in string trios by Lou Harrison and Pierre Jalbert.
The Verdehr Trio from Michigan State University, which has performed all over the world commissioning and recording hundreds of pieces written for their ensemble for more than 30 years, will perform a program on May 22 that highlights the broad range of American composers, from Joan Tower to Jennifer Higdon to Bright Sheng, among others.
David Haas, professor of musicology in the school of music, will present a pre-concert lecture 45 minutes before each performance.
For more information, see https://sites.google.com/site/americanchamberfestival/.
