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University Daily Kansan
Arts/Entertainment
Thursday, April 3, 1986
Vitality. accuracy to spark Beaux concert
Rv Grant W. Butler
Staff writer
The Beaux Arts Trio will perform a concert chamber music for piano, violin and cello at 8 p.m. Sunday in the Cratton Preyer Theatre in Murphy Hall. Tickets for the performance are on sale at the Murphy Hall Box Office, and cost $5.50 and $40 for KU students; $11.19 and $9 for the general public and $10 and $8 for senior citizens and other students.
Some people think there is not a lot of music written for the combination of piano and cello, but the Beaux Arts Trio has been working for 30 years to change that, a member of the trio said last week.
"I don't think the music has been ignored," said Isidore Cohen, violinist for the trio. "What's happened is it's music that was played by
afore many performers who would play a few concerts and then split up
"Because of this, there was never a sense of enclosure."
When famous performers began taking fewer tours, Colen said, the music began to be ignored. All people wanted to hear were string quartets.
With the help of the Beaux Arts Trio, who will be making their fourth appearance at KU on Sunday, the music is again being played, and played throughout the world.
The group's passion for travel and public performances has resulted in tours throughout North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand. Cohen said the trio averaged about
st there still is time for other work, he said.
130 performances each year
"Most of our music making is as a trio, but we do other things with chamber music or solo performances," he said. "Seven-eighths of our time and energy, however, is spent on the trio."
Members of the trio are Menahem Pressler, pianist, Bernard Greenhouse, cellist and Cohen
For its KU performance, the trio will play works by Haydn, Seubert, Beethoven and Mendelssohn.
The work by Beethoven was 'Trio in D major, Opus 70, No.1' The title of the work is 'Ghost', which Cohen said came from the mood of the
"The slow movement is very mysterious and ghost like," he said. "He may have been working on a theme for the ghost scene from an opera version of 'Hamlet.'"
piece.
The trio has won several awards for their recordings, including the record of the year award from "Stereo Review." Cohen said the awards helped the trio in several ways.
"They promote record sales and bring people to the concerts," he said. "People see that a record has an impact and think it must be a good group."
But the trio sees recordings as a second-rate way of listening to
chamber music. Cohen said, because there is no substitute for the vitality and accuracy of live performances
"The recording situation is somewhat artificial because there's no audience," he said. "You can't achieve the perfection you achieve in a concert hall.
"There's so much repetition in recording to get the right sound that sometimes a recording can have a level of sterility."
Jackie Davis, director of the KU Concert and Chamber Music Series said that in addition to being gifted musicians, the trio members were also kind people who were willing to share their past experiences
because my first year as a concert presenter they were the third group I presented." Davis said.
'They're special friends for me
Students and faculty members should be familiar with Pressler's work, Davin said, because he has been the piano artist in residence at KU several times.
But when the two plays together, she said, audience members can expect to hear a complete blend of sound.
"They've been playing together for 30 years, and they play almost as one," she said. "They interact with each other in a way that is wonderful."
"They're probably the most prestigious, most talented and most modern chef in town."
Sound buoyed with intimacy of instruments
By Monique O'Donnell
"Music of the German Renaissance, Reformation and Baroque," will be performed by the Gruenwinter Consort at 7 p.m. Saturday in the Swarath Recital Hall in Murphy Hill.
There's a gray house on the corner of 111th and Louisiana streets. It isn't special, but the melodies which seep through the window cracks are a testimony of love and commitment to music by some of the residents.
Inside the dark corridor, baroque and Renaissance songs can be heard clearly. Upstairs, four KU students can be found sitting in a circle playing unusually shaped instruments.
They are the Gruenroll Consort and their instruments are reproductions of original Renaissance instruments. The group has labored over the melodies for Saturday night's concert at the University of Kansas in frequent rehearsals.
Colleen Chase, a member of the group who is a Washington graduate student, shares the second floor of the gray house with two other members of the Gruenroll Consort, Nancy and Russ Elliott-Hodge, Lawrence graduate students.
Peter Helyar, a Lawrence senior, is the only member who does not share the convenience of being able to practice at home like the others. But he attends the rehearsals regularly.
Gruenrohl Consort takes its name from the Gruenrohlmusikmanzer, 17th century German musicians associated with neither guilty nor court, who played primary for their own pleasure.
"We play for fun, but we are very serious about our music," Nancy Elliott Hodge said.
The quartet has played together for more than a year and is performing 15 concerts this semester. It is a subgroup of the KU Collegium Musicum.
An unusual aspect of the group is its choice of instruments. Elliot-Hodge said the group wanted to achieve the sound of original Renaissance and baroque music.
"We put a lot of our time into it," Elliott Hodge said. "Actually all of our time away from work and school goes into our music."
"you hear so many concerts played on modern instruments," she said. "The sounds of these instruments is different and fresh to us."
is different and a reason for this.
The instruments include a viola d gamba (viol), an early stringed instrument that was replaced by the violin/cello family; a recorder, an early woodwind replaced by the flute; a crumbron, a double-reed instrument resembling the oboe or bagpipe, a cornetto, an early brass instrument replaced by the trumpet; and a lute, somewhat similar to a guitar.
Some instruments are owned by the KU Collegium Musicum and some are owned by the members of the quartet. Each member plays two or more instrument<sup>e</sup>
Huss Elliott Hodge said the instruments were softer in sound than many modern instruments that had a clear, brilliant sound that projects outward and made them more suitable for large concert performances. The sound from the old instruments is more intimate.
"We like the textures that are possible on the viol and late, for example," he said. "Every one of these instruments can be heard very clearly. Every line becomes important and puts a great responsibility on the player."
Saturday night's concert will feature music of the German Renaissance, Reformation and Baroque.
The first half of the performance will include baroque music by Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Philipp Telemann. The KU Bach Ensemble and two members of the Gruenblut Consort will play Bach's "Brandenburg Concerto No 6 in B-flat Major."
The second half of the performance will continue with sacred and secular songs from the Renaissance and will be performed by the KU Sackbut Ensemble, the Gruenroll Consort and Rebecca Stuhr-Rommereim, Lawrence resident who plays baroque flute.
Telemann's "Sonata in F Major" and "Sonata in G Minor" will be performed by members of the Gruenroll Consort and John Stuhr-Rommereim, Lawrence doctoral student, on harpsichord.
Original music of the Middle Ages, Renaissance and baroque is becoming very popular. Nancy Elliott Hodge said. But often instruments and tempo are not specified. Accidentals are not written in, she said, and during rehearsals the group had to edit and decide whether notes were sharp, flat or natural, as well as what tempo and which instruments to play.
The Sackbut ensemble will play some fantasies on instruments that look and sound like trombones. Sackbuts were instruments of the Renaissance which were later replaced by trombones.
The group owns about 500 recordings of Renaissance and baroque music. Elliott-Hodge said the recordings were a helpful reference in learning how the music and the instruments had to sound.
"The problem with all the older instruments is that they can be fickle in tune and you have to adjust them often," he said. "But the sound is more delicate, more silvery in quality."
Playing the harpsichord is a very sensuous experience, Stuhr Rommereim said. Plucking the strings of the instrument is a more direct feeling than playing the piano.
John Stuhr-Rommereim, said he performed with the Gruenroll Concert now and then, but was actually an adjunct to the group.
Harold E. Edgerton
This atomic bomb explosion was taken in 1952 by Edgerton, a retired professor of electrical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Beyond Sight," an exhibit of 85 of Edgerton's photographs, is on display in the Kress Gallery at the Spencer Museum of Art.
Time stopped by technology
By Monique O'Donnell
Time
The exhibit opened Sunday and will continue through May 18. Edgerton will speak about "The History of the Stroboscopic Flash" at 2 p.m. Sunday in the auditorium at the museum.
Many everyday actions are executed so quickly that they become invisible to the eye. The high-speed phenomenon of time, such as water running from a faucet, birds flying or objects shattering on sudden impact cannot be deciphered by the human eye.
Edgerton has captured movement occurring in less than one millionth of a second in his photographs. In "Beyond Sight," an exhibit of 85 photographs by Edgerton in the Kress Gallery at the Spencer Museum of Art, the public can see stop-action photographs of atomic bomb explosions, bullets tearing through playing cards, bursting lightbulbs and more.
Harold Edgerton, however, has brought the instant of high-speed motion to a standstill in his photographs. He is a retired professor of electrical engineering at Bethesda Institute of Technology.
Edgerton was a graduate student at MIT in the late 1920s when he began experimenting with the stroboscopic flash.
When Edgerton began his experiments he found that by illuminating the subject, rather than adjusting the shutter, he could use a conventional camera to stop very fast motion. The light, in effect, became the shutter.
In conventional cameras, shut ters can flick open and closed in less than 1/4000th of a second. From a distance fast action can be photographed clearly, but close-up, high-speed motion is rendered as a blur. Conventional cameras have a severe limitation in taking very short exposures.
Further experiments led Edgerton to use flash lamps filled with mercury vapor and other gases that could produce bursts of light. These flashes were brighter than the sun and lasted as little as a millionth of a second.
Edgerton's research and techniques led him to develop new cameras and techniques to observe a great variety of phenomena. Many of his experiments have aided scientific research.
Edgerton's work also has helped artists explore the world in new
says Thomas Southall, curator at the museum and instructor of history of photography, said Edgerton's photographs were more than just scientific and practical.
"His works are graphically stunin in their boldness and clarity." Southall said.
Edgerton, Southall said, had a great influence on many artists in the 1920s who were trying to find different approaches toward photographing the world around them. Edgerton helped distinguish the vision of the camera from being just another means of duplicating reality.
Edgerton's photographic experiments range from multiflash images of athletes, which make it possible to analyze movements, to techniques of nighttime aerial photography. His nighttime experiments and make wartime missions missile safes and more accurate.
Southall said the photographs were a gift to the museum by Richard and Patricia Young, KU alumni. Southall also said the exhibition had been helpful to students who were taking history of photography classes.
"The day of the lecture is Edgerton's 83rd birthday." Southall said.
KU students to see musical buffoonery in Faculty Follies Antics portray professors as slapstick comedians raise money for scholars
Staff writer
By Grant W. Butler
Staff writer
Pi Kappa Lambda Faculty Follies... presented by members of the University of Kansas music and dance faculty at 6.01 a.m. in Swarthout Rivert Hall in Murphy Hall. Tickets are $3.05 for the general public and KU students and $2.01 for senior citizens and are available at the door.
Taking away the formality of music performances and allowing students to see the goofy side of their professors is the idea behind the P) Kappa Lambda Faculty Follies, the president of the KU chapter of P) Kappa Lambda said Monday.
"It gives students an opportunity to see their professors be silly musically," said Norman Paige, professor of music and the president
The concert benefits the Pi Kappa Lambda scholarship fund, which recognizes students who have had outstanding achievements in music and academic fields. The other fund-raiser for the organization is the Concerto/Aria Concert which is presented each winter
Students should get the idea that the concert is going to be a little off the wall by the starting time and the ticket price, Paige said.
"Last year we had the concert on April Fools Day and we started it at 8:01 p.m. and charged $2.99 to show the silliness of the whole thing," he said. "This year, to adjust for raises in the cost of living, we're charging $3.01
There will be between eight and 12 performers in this year's show. Paige said the number probably would not be determined before the day of the show because the acts were still being developed.
who hopes to put me in the right place.
"It's sort of a way to let your hair down a little bit."
Myers said. "But then, my students think I'm crazy anyway."
Performing in Faculty Follies will be a lot of fun, according to Dense Myers, assistant professor of music who hopes to put an act together for tonight's show.
Myers said she wanted to spoof classical vocal music, but wasn't sure whether she could find someone to per- the act with her.
Throwing acts together is all part of the show's flavor. Pauge
One thing about the show is certain, he said. There will be slurskits skirts and a lot of musical buffery.
"We're going to be really spontaneous," he said. "But we're a bunch of old pros, so we can pull it off."
Page said that in the past, popular performances has included Mirrigan Green, retired professor of music, singing as an opera diva and ending up singing blues singles on a piano; David Bushueb, professor of music, playing a garden hose instead of the French horn; and Michael Kimber, associate professor of music, and Susan Hiek, associate professor of music, playing a viola together using an 18-foot bow.
together using the 18-foot bow was a performance of a movement called "Ground Round" from a sonata by P.D.O. Bach Kimber said.
The bow was constructed out of a fishing pole and fishing line and was one of the suggestions from the composer on the piece's notes, he said.
"It took two people to play the instrument — one to hold the note and another to walk across the stage with the bow." Kimber said. "I didn't have much to do since I was the person holding down the note, so I just yawned and acted generally bored with it all."
Kimber said that this year he would be performing in a skit, "Life in the Office of Song and Dance," which would include performances by about 12 faculty members and students.
Paige said not all of the faculty members in the department of music and dance liked this sort of performance, but they were in the minority.
"There are faculty members who teach academic courses who like this because they don't get a chance to perform," he said. "Then there are faculty members who love to play the clown."
Many faculty members have wild senses of humor, but rarely get to show students this side of their personality. he said.
Myers said this farcal quality of the show was what made it pleasurable for students
it's something we look forward to as students because we get to see our teachers do something totally ignorant in front of God and everybody," she said.
Two KU bands note spring with annual concerts
Spring means more to KU musicians than budding trees and blooming flowers. It's the time of year when the efforts of the past semester are displayed for audiences. Two KU bands, the University Band and the Concert Band, will perform spring concerts in the next week.
The University Band, directed by James Barnes, will feature Barnes' newest piece, "Autumn Soliloquy for Oboe and Winds." Barnes wrote it during his fall sabbatical.
"It's a very lonely, quiet song that is sort of like walking through the woods in the autumn," Barnes said.
He said the main reason he wrote the
song was that not much music had been written for oboe and winds, and he wanted the University Band to perform with Susan Edythe Hicks, KU associate
Hicks is a graduate of Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and Yale University. She is a performer with the Kansas Woodhinds at KU and tours extensively with Susan Marchant, a faculty member at Pittsburg State University, performing duo recitals for oboe and organ.
The University Band will perform at 8 p.m. Monday in Crafton-Preyer Theatre in Murphy Hall. Other works on the program include "Riverfest, an Overture for Band," also by Barnes; "Pageant"
by Vincent Persichette, the marches "King Cotton" and "Hands Across the Sea" by John Philip Sousa; three "Shavonic Dances" by Antonin Dvorsak; Prelude and Fugue in D Minor, from "Eight Little Preludes and Fugues," by Johann Sebastian Bach; and "Incantation and Dance" by John Barnes Chance
Thomas Stidham, director of the Con
The Concert Band will perform at 3:30 p.m. Sunday in the Craft-Preamer Theatre. Barnes said that in past years the two bands have shared a concert. But because it usually lasted too long and because both bands wanted to perform full-length concerts, they will perform on different nights.
cert Band, will be assisted by guest professor George Boberg, KU professor of percussion. Boberg will conduct the Concert Band and Percussion Ensemble in the performance of "Jargon (After William Billings)" by Fisher Tull.
Other works on the program include "George Washington Bridge" by William Schuman; "Ballade" from "Second Suite" by Robert Jager; "Second Suite in F" by Gustav Hoslst; "Athletic Festival March" by Serge Prokirkff; "Prelude, Siciliano and Ronde" by Malecolm Arnold; "Santiago Carnival" by Claude T Smith and "The Old Circus Band March" by Fred Jewell.
Both concerts are free