The West Virginia University Chamber Players, a group of WVU School of Music virtuoso performers, will present its third season concert at the Creative Arts Center Feb. 2.

The event begins at 7:30 p.m. in Bloch Learning and Performance Hall (Room 200A) and is free and open to the public.

Among the music on the program is “La cr�ation du monde” (The Creation of the World), a ballet score by French composer Darius Milhaud (1892-1974).

“Milhaud, like much of Paris in the 1920s, was taken by American jazz and wrote a jazzy, quirky score for an ensemble of 17 musicians,” said Mitchell Arnold, WVU’s director of orchestral activities, and the WVU Chamber Players conductor.

“From blues to cakewalk, from chaos to kiss, Milhaud’s music is a thrill.”

“La cr�ation” will be performed by an ensemble consisting of nearly all WVU’s outstanding instrumental faculty, joined by several students.

Also on the program is “Nonetto” by Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959), a sprite and affective work that was written 35 years after the composer left his beloved homeland, and in the year of his death.

“It should come as no surprise that ‘Nonetto’ is largely inspired by songs and dances of Martinů’s Czech homeland cast in a style reminiscent of 20th century neo-classicism,” Arnold said.

“Zapping Trio” by Eric Sammut (b. 1968) was written for the marimba competition at Les Journ�es de la Percussion in 2003 and has taken flight as an often-played showpiece, combining virtuoso cadenzas for marimba and clarinet with sections modeled on various jazz styles: ballad, tango, bossa-nova, and old-fashioned swing.

The final work on the program is “Kaiserwalzer” (Emperor Waltzes) by Joahnn Strauss II (1825-1899). The WVU Chamber Players will perform a 1925 arrangement of the piece by Arnold Schoenberg.

“The occasion for this 1925 arrangement of ‘Kaiserwalzer’ was a Spanish tour of the Ensemble Pierrot, performing Schoenberg’s ‘Pierrot Lunaire,’” Arnold said. “Curiously related to tonight’s program is the fact that Darius Milhaud had conducted the French premiere of ‘Pierrot Lunaire.’”

The WVU Chamber Players, a WVU faculty ensemble, consists of some of the finest musicians in the state of West Virginia. During the past three years, the group has performed in Pittsburgh, Charleston and Wheeling, as well as Morgantown. It consists of the following musicians from the WVU School of Music:

Nina Assimakopoulos, flutist; Cynthia Babin Anderson, oboist; John Weigand, clarinetist; Jeanne Frieben (WVU Community Music Program faculty member), clarinetist; Lynn Hileman, bassoonist; Michael Ibrahim, saxophonist; John Winkler, trumpeter/cornetist; H. Keith Jackson, trombonist; Miklah Myers McTeer, violinist; Andrea Houde, violist; William Skidmore, violoncellist; Andrew Kohn, double bassist; James Miltenberger, pianist; George Willis, percussionist; and Mitchell Arnold, conductor.

Students joining the ensemble include: Angela Reynolds, flutist; Lauren Harris, hornist; Kenneth Piatt, trumpeter; Ryan Mullins, percussionist; and Diego Gabete-Rodriquez, violinist.

For more information about the concert, contact the College of Creative Arts at (304) 293-4359.

-WVU-

CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, College of Creative Arts
304-293-4359, Charlene.Lattea@mail.wvu.edu

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