Axe ’Em, Jacks!
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - The Stone Fort Wind Quintet, a faculty ensemble at Stephen F. Austin State University, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 31, in Cole Concert Hall in the Tom and Peggy Wright Music Building on the SFA campus.
The program will feature a mix of music and will include works by Giuseppe Cambini, Josef Foerster, Daniel Baldwin and György Ligeti. The quintet features School of Music faculty members Christina Guenther-Scott, flute; John W. Goodall, oboe; Christopher Ayer, clarinet; Staci Spring, bassoon; and Charles Gavin, horn.
The concert, which is part of the Cole Performing Arts Series, opens with a wind quintet standard of the Classical era - Cambini's Quintet No. 2 in D Minor.
"There were many Classical composers such as Cambini, (Franz) Danzi and (Anton) Reicha who wrote for the wind quintet, a relatively new ensemble in their day," said Ayer, who is professor of clarinet at SFA.
Quintet, op. 95 by Foerster, which is written in the late Romantic style, will follow. This quintet involves "some very thick writing for the quintet and challenges all instruments," Ayer said. "In many places, the listener can detect the late Romantic influence of (Richard) Wagner and his contemporaries."
The second half of the concert opens with Baldwin's "Dreams of the White Tiger." Baldwin is currently the director of bands and orchestra at Tabor College. This work is the result of a group commission by several wind quintets around the country, and this will be one of the first performances of the piece, Ayer said.
The concert's closing piece, Ligeti's "Six Bagatelles," has become a standard work in the wind quintet repertory since its composition in 1953.
"Despite being written more than 60 years ago, the music is very fresh sounding and energetic," Ayer said. "The six short, varied movements are rhythmically intense with strong melodic motives dominating the texture. Ligeti uses the instruments of the quintet masterfully in creating different colors to constantly present the repetitive motives in unique ways."
Tickets are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for students and youth. For tickets or more information, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu.