New York Woodwind Quintet to perform in Bemidji Concert Series

NOTE: Photos of the New York Woodwind Quintet are available at http://www.nywq.org. To arrange for a pre-event interview with the group, contact Del Lyren, concert series coordinator, at (218) 766-8512.

BEMIDJI, Minn. — The New York Woodwind Quintet, one of America’s most celebrated and innovative chamber ensembles, will perform Friday, Feb. 27, as the second installment of the annual Bemidji Concert Series presented by Bemidji State University.

The 7:30 p.m. concert will be held in the Thompson Recital Hall of the Bangsberg Fine Arts Complex at BSU. Quintet members will give a short presentation about their music and the quintet at 7 p.m.

Individual event tickets are $20 for the general public, $5 for students and free for students with a valid Bemidji State identification card. Tickets may be purchased at the Department of Music, Lueken’s Village Foods North and Tutto Bene in Bemidji. If available, tickets also will be sold at the door.

New York Woodwind Quintet
Founded in 1947, the New York Woodwind Quintet has gained international prominence for its imaginative programs that embrace everything from transcriptions of Bach to first performances of new works. Its Bemidji program will include works written by master composers of various eras including the contemporary Elliott Carter, who is acknowledged as America’s oldest living and active composer.

The quintet has commissioned and premiered numerous compositions, some of which have become classics of the woodwind repertoire. They include Samuel Barber’s “Summer Music” and quintets by Gunther Schuller, Ezra Laderman, William Bergsma, Jon Deak and others. Many of these works have been featured in the quintet’s recordings for such labels as Boston Skyline, Bridge New World and Nonesuch.

The quintet remains unique among touring woodwind quintets with members who are all individually distinguished soloists and teachers with far-ranging careers: flutist Carol Wincenc, clarinetist Charles Neidich, oboist Stephen Taylor, bassoonist Marc Goldberg, and French hornist William Purvis. The quintet also continues a 20-year residency at The Juilliard School.

Bemidji Program
Special features of the quintet’s Bemidji program will include:
•    Carter’s “Woodwind Quartet,” a century tribute to this composer who was born in 1908 and throughout his career has contributed many major works to the woodwind repertory.
•    A quintet by Paul Haas, a Czechoslovakian-born Jewish composer, who died in an Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944 at the age of 45. Although his woodwind quintet disappeared from the repertory following World War II, it has been restored in a new edition, based on copies of the original publication found in a museum.
•    A composition for clock-organ by Mozart, one of several that he wrote for this mechanical instrument. Purvis, continuing with the quintet’s tradition of transcribing and composing, has arranged the music for woodwind quintet.

The Artists
•    Flutist Carol Wincenc has appeared as a soloist with major orchestras around the world and has premiered works written for her by many of today’s most prominent composers. She has collaborated with such revered chamber musicians as Yo-Yo Ma, Elly Ameling, and Jessye Norman, as well as the Guarneri, Emerson, Tokyo and Cleveland string quartets.
•    Stephen Taylor holds the Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III solo oboe chair with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He is also solo oboe with several prominent orchestras including the American Composers Orchestra and the contemporary music group Speculum Musicae. He plays on a rare Caldwell model Loree oboe.
•    Clarinetist Charles Neidich performs with leading ensembles including the St. Louis and Minneapolis symphonies. He is a soloist, composer and conductor and recently fulfilled all three roles with the San Diego Symphony. He restores original versions of works for public performance, including those of Mozart, Weber, Copland and Schumann. He is also a leading exponent of new music.
•    Marc Goldberg has been a member of the New York Philharmonic and the New York City Opera and is currently the principal bassoonist of Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. He has been a frequent guest of the Metropolitan Opera, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and other prestigious groups. He also has premiered hundreds of works over the last 20 years.
•    French hornist William Purvis appeared as soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony at age 18, later launching a multifaceted career as a soloist, chamber musician, conductor and educator. A passionate advocate for new music, his world premieres include Richard Wernick’s “Quintet for Horn and String Quartet” with the Juilliard Quartet at the Library of Congress and Steven Stucky’s “Trio for Obeo, Horn and Harpsichord” at Carnegie Hall.

Concert funding
The concert is supported by the Performing Arts Fund, a program of Arts Midwest funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional contributions were made by the Minnesota State Arts Board, General Mills Foundation and the Land O’Lakes Foundation. Funding has also been provided by the Bemidji State University Foundation, the Bemidji State University College of Arts and Sciences and the Region 2 Arts Council.

Bemidji Concert Series schedule
The Bemidji Concert Series will conclude its 2008-09 season with the Western Brass Quintet, 7:30 p.m., Monday, April 6. The award-winning faculty ensemble from Western Michigan University offers a variety of classical programs ranging from Bach to Bernstein.

History and sponsorship
The Bemidji Concert Series began seven years ago with the goal of making Bemidji the cultural center for northern Minnesota and providing the Bemidji region with music that could not commonly be heard without traveling to the Twin Cities.

The series is supported by sponsorships from the BSU Department of Music, Bemidji “Pioneer,” the Villa Calma Bed & Breakfast on Lake Boulevard, and the BSU Student Activity Allocation Committee.

For more information, contact the Department of Music at (218) 755-2915.

FOR YOUR CALENDAR
Feb. 27
– 7:30 p.m. – New York Woodwind Quintet as the second installment of the Bemidji Concert Series presented by Bemidji State University Department of Music. Location: Thompson Recital Hall of the Bangsberg Fine Arts Complex, BSU campus. Admission: $20 for adults, $5 for students and free for students with a BSU identification card.

About the Performing Arts Fund
The Performing Arts Fund supports the inter-state touring of professional performing artists specializing in the fine arts of dance, theater, music, youth and family entertainment, and other meaningful performing arts forms appropriate for communities throughout Arts Midwest’s nine-state region. These engagements include public performances and in-depth educational activities reaching audiences that lack access to the performing arts.

About the Region 2 Arts Council
The Region 2 Arts Council strengthens the presence of the arts by supporting opportunities for arts creation, promotion, education and funding for the people of Beltrami, Hubbard, Clearwater, Lake of the Woods and Mahnomen counties.