A trio of trios today at Dalton

By Christopher Campbell
Western Herald

Western Michigan University students will have the opportunity to see a trio of trios on campus. A free recital will be held today at 8:15 p.m. in the Dalton Center Recital Hall.

“We have worked on things like having eye contact at crucial moments, breathing together, discussing and shaping the musical sentences so that they sound coordinated, like one instrument instead of three,” said WMU School of Music professor Silvia Roederer, who coached one of the three piano trios.

“It’s this compromise to achieve unity, and the sense of watching a public conversation that makes chamber music fun for the audience,” Roederer said.

“It’s like watching people argue, dance, love, joke, on stage.”

Each piano trio contains of a pianist, a violinist, and a cellist, Roederer said.

“It takes a lot of work to make three musicians sound good together,” said professor Bruce Uchimura, who, like Roederer, coached one of trios.

“Each group has to learn to get along and agree to do things the same way. Just like in life, it is always a challenge to convince someone else of your viewpoint.”

Working in this capacity with other students has been a rewarding learning experience for the students.

“I feel that the three of us really work well together and have a cohesive sound when we are on stage,” said Evan Snyder, WMU student and member of one of the trios.

“We’ve been told that we’re very musical and bring such a fervor and life to the music we perform.”

One of our undergraduate students, Adam Lenz, conducted research in Armenia, and subsequently arranged to have students and faculty perform concerts of the lesser works he researched, including the Babajanian on Thursday’s program,” Roederer said.

Snyder said that the ensemble was formed to perform rare works from Russia and Slovakia, and that his trio’s hope is to bring this rare classical music to the American audience, as it has seldom been heard outside of Europe.

“Sometimes it’s hard to feel anything physically because my fingers are flying so quickly and all over the place. It’s some tough music,” Snyder said.

A flavorful repertoire is to be delivered Thursday, with “Buenos Aires Winter” by Argentine composer Piazzolla, a movement of a Beethoven Trio from Opus 1, a large dramatic work by 20th century Armenian composer Arno
Babajanian, and a trio by Czech composer Bedrich Smetana.

Free parking is available at Miller Auditorium for the performance.

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Posted by heraldstaff on Apr 14 2010. Filed under A & E, Weekend Scene. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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