SFA’s Stone Fort Wind Quintet

SFA’s Stone Fort Wind Quintet will perform at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus. The faculty ensemble features, from left, Dr. Cody Hunter, bassoon; Dr. Pablo Moreno, oboe; Dr. Andrea Denis, horn; Dr. Christina Guenther, flute; and Dr. Christopher Ayer, clarinet.


NACOGDOCHES, Texas – The Stone Fort Wind Quintet at Stephen F. Austin State University will present works by David Sartor, Daniel Dorff, Astor Piazzolla and other composers when the faculty ensemble performs at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

“The Stone Fort Wind Quintet is pleased to introduce our new double reed faculty members: Dr. Pablo Moreno, oboe, and Dr. Cody Hunter, bassoon,” said Dr. Christina Guenther, professor flute at SFA and quintet member. Other members include Dr. Christopher Ayer, clarinet; and Dr. Andrea Denis, horn.

The program opens with Sartor’s “Aspirations,” written for and dedicated to Vanderbilt University’s Blair Woodwind Quintet. The work was a national finalist for the American Prize in Chamber Music Composition. The third movement, “Vivo,” which is “an energetic movement with recognizable themes that travel between the instruments,” according to Guenther, will be performed. 

Dorff’s five-movement wind quintet “Cape May Breezes” depicts different scenes in Cape May: “Breezing Into Town,” “Victorian Garden Party,” “Dusk at Sunset Beach” and “Night Breezes on the Boardwalk.” “Listeners can easily picture the images portrayed through the musical text painting,” Guenther said.

Also on the program are three movements of Jenni Brandon’s “Five Frogs” depicting various events in the life of frogs, including “Leaping,” “Swimming” and “Catching Bugs.” The quintet will perform Kenji Bunch’s “Shout Chorus,” which was premiered by the Imani Winds in 2006 in Vail, Colorado. “It is a piece with an incredibly driving force, complex rhythms and shifting moods, demanding superb technique and absolute focus from the performers,” writes Guenther.

Written while Piazzolla was living in Rome, “Libertango” is one of his most well-known pieces, which he referred to as “sort of a song of liberty.”

Tickets are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for students and youth. To purchase tickets, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit finearts.sfasu.edu. For additional information, contact the SFA School of Music at (936) 468-4602.