Fourth Annual Summer Chamber Music Festival Opens This Week

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The fourth annual KUAF/Fulbright Summer Chamber Music Festival will open Thursday, May 24, with the first of six programs featuring works by Bach, Loeffler, Biber and Dvorak. The free concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in the Fine Arts Building at the University of Arkansas. A reception will follow.

The Chamber Music Festival will feature guest artists as well as faculty from the University of Arkansas department of music in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. Performances will include a variety of chamber music using diverse instrumental groups from many musical eras.

Program I will include “Concerto, for Violin and Oboe,” by J.S. Bach (1685-1750); “Deux Rhapsodies, for Oboe, Viola, and Piano” by Charles Loeffler (1861-1935); “Sonata No. 3, for two Violins, Trombone and Continuo,” by Heinrich Biber (1644-1704); “American” String Quartet by Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904); and will feature Er-Gene Kahng on violin and Stephen Gates on cello.

 Kahng, assistant professor of music, has earned top prizes in many competitions. In April, 1996 she was co-sponsored by the Council for Human Understanding in Los Angeles and Sanrio Inc. to serve as the youngest “ambassador” from the United States to Japan, visiting Tokyo, Hiroshima and Kyoto.  Other significant travels have included South Africa through the National Youth Leadership Forum and Port-au-Prince, Haiti through the ACCORDS Arts Organization in California. 

Gates, professor of music, has played with the Boston Opera Company, the Boston Philharmonia and the Boston Pops Orchestra. He served as the assistant principal cellist of the New Haven Symphony and is a founding member the Ozark Chamber Players.

The Summer Chamber Music Festival concerts, held at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday evenings in May and June, will be in the Smith Concert Hall, except for the one on May 31, which will take place in the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church’s Parish Hall. The concerts are all free and open to the public and each will be followed by a reception.

Free parking is available at both locations. For the concerts on the University of Arkansas campus, parking is available in the Stadium Drive Parking Facility, where parking is free after 5 p.m. Entrance to the parking facility is on Stadium Drive, and the facility’s elevator will take patrons to street level directly across from the Fine Arts Center. Music previews of all six programs may be found at http://www.fulbrightsummermusic.uark.edu/index.php.

Listen for interviews with many of the featured musicians beginning this week on “Of Note with Katy Henriksen,” 11 a.m. weekdays on KUAF 91.3 FM.