(Hamilton, OH) – The halls are alive with the sound of music.
Or soon will be when student musicians from Miami University return to the Fitton Center for the third of four scheduled FREE chamber music concerts at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 14, in the first-floor Monument Gallery.
Professor Aaron Pergram said students mined the romantic period to create a program with music mirroring the visual art in the gallery’s current exhibition - Double Take.
“We focused on making programs reflecting the art, at least conceptually,” Pergram said. “It’s a lot of duality, of taking a second look, music whose words match the descriptions of the art.“We have all chamber music groups, not just winds or not just strings. It’s more collaboration in the music, in the groups. It’s an intersection and a reflection of the art.”
Featuring a wide variety within that romantic framework.
Guests will hear five different groups, including a graduate student trio (Benjamin Ng, violin; Oliver Haifeng Zhao, bassoon; Qi Zhou, piano) performing a pair of Miniatures for Piano Trio by Frank Bridge. Ng and Olivia Eddy pair up to play Duos for Two Violins (Op. 49) by Reinhold Glière.
Ezra Simmons (flute), Cole Kubesch (oboe), Zach Perrino (clarinet), Max Liber (horn) and Zhao (bassoon) form the fivesome playing Wind Quintet, Op. 79 by August Klughardt, while Carter Fogg (violin), Eddy (violin), Cecelia Meinking (viola) and Marcus Cheung (cello) perform Quartet No. 2 in A minor by Felix Mendelssohn.
The final group is the Oxford Winds, a graduate group that first played the Fitton Center in the spring of 2022. That performance served as the precursor to the current chamber series. Their current lineup features Joshua Rudnick (oboe), Julianna Baldwin (clarinet) and Zhao (bassoon) offering Cinq pièces en trio by Jacques Ibert.
“We’ve got a lot of nationalities represented in the music, a lot of different styles, a lot of different moods,” Pergram said. “I think people will enjoy the variety.”
Pergram is pleased with the arc of the concert series as it rounds into spring.
“After each time we’ve done a program, it has gotten easier and easier to get the students interested,” he said. “The students are bringing their own ensembles and choosing their own works to perform. They’re more excited to go out, to get off campus and to play. They’re not worried about their juried finals, their grades. They’re playing because they want to, not because they have to.
“This very seemingly simple collaboration we have going on is much, much deeper than what it appears. I doubt the students realize yet how important this is to their development as musicians, but we have soft spot in our hearts for the Fitton for giving us this opportunity.”The hour-long concert is free and open to the public.
The Fitton Center for Creative Arts is located at 101 S. Monument Avenue on the Riverfront in downtown Hamilton, Ohio.
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