ISSUED: 3 January 2017
MEDIA CONTACT: Valerie Owens
SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV — Shepherd University’s 2016-2017 Music Salon Series, sponsored by Jefferson Security Bank, continues on Thursday, January 12, at 8 p.m. in the Frank Center’s W. H. Shipley Recital Hall with a performance titled “Two Faces of the Baroque” by faculty members of the Mountainside Baroque Summer Academy in Cumberland, Maryland.
Performers will include Brandi Berry from DePaul University in Chicago on violin; Marc Bellassai from Towson University in Maryland on harpsichord; Sarah Lynn from Baltimore on traverso; and Arnie Tanimoto of New York City on viola da gamba. Baritone and Mountainside co-director Ryan Mullaney will sing, while fellow co-director Lyle Nordstrom will play lute and orbo.
The first portion of the program will feature English music from the 17th century based on popular tunes of the time like “Greensleeves,” “Will you go walk the woods so wild,” and “Watkins ale.” The second half will feature Georg Philipp Telemann’s E minor “Paris Quartet.”
Mountainside Baroque is an early music collective that performs pieces written before 1800. It was established in 2011 by Mullaney and Nordstrom and is committed to historically informed performances using reproductions of instruments of the time, including lute, orbo, recorder, viola da gamba, harpsichord, and Baroque oboe, flute, bassoon, violin, viola, and cello.
The Mountainside Baroque Summer Academy is a day camp in Cumberland, Maryland, that started in June 2016. It offers five days of instruction for keyboard, stringed instruments, flute, and voice to middle, high school, and early college-age students. Jeff Avey, academy administrator, will be on hand at the Salon Series concert to provide prospective students and parents with more information about the academy
Two other Salon Series concerts are planned for the spring semester. They include:
- Thursday, February 23—Soprano and Shepherd alumna Jaely Chamberlain and pianist Andrew Welch present “Neo-Classicism from the Americas to the British Isles.” The program will include works by Hahn, Britten, and Barber. Australian native Chamberlain has expertise that spans from the classical repertoire to the standards of jazz and musical theater. Welch has worked as a pianist and conductor at venues in Washington, D.C., including the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, Millennium Stage, the Washington National Opera, the Smithsonian, the Lyceum, and the State Department. Welch also serves as organist and choirmaster at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bethesda, Maryland.
- Thursday, March 23—A tribute to the music of Thelonious Monk by Shepherd’s jazz faculty. The group includes Dr. Kurtis Adams, associate professor of music and director of jazz studies, on saxophone; Dr. Mark Andrew Cook, associate professor of music, on piano; and adjunct faculty members Kevin Pace on bass and Ronnie Shaw on drums.
Sponsored by Jefferson Security Bank, the Shepherd University Music Salon Series concerts take place in the Frank Center’s W. H. Shipley Recital Hall and begin at 8 p.m. For more information about the Shepherd Salon Series or other Department of Music events, call 304-876-5555 or visit www.shepherd.edu/music.
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