UIU hosts Red Cedar Chamber Music performance of Long Journey Home October 6
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From left, Jan Boland, John Dowdall and Carey Bostian will be performing on October 6 at the Fayette Opera House. |
FAYETTE, Iowa (September 25, 2012) – Through the initiative of Upper Iowa University's Division of Liberal Arts, Red Cedar Chamber Music brings Long Journey Home, a Rural Outreach concert for flute, cello and guitar to the Fayette Opera House Saturday, October 6. The public performance begins at 7:00 p.m. The opera house is located at the corner of Main and Clark Streets in Fayette.
Cellist Carey Bostian joins flutist Jan Boland and guitarist John Dowdall to perform Czech-inspired chamber music by Iowa composers, including the world premiere of Long Journey Home, a new trio by Red Cedar Chamber Music's composer-in-residence, Michael Gilbertson, Dubuque.
In addition to the funding from the Division of Liberal Arts, including a performance grant provided by the John Falb family, the concert is sponsored by The Augustine Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts and the James and Norma Rosborough Foundation. Artist sponsorship was made possible by Victor and Janice Naxera and Margaret Haupt.
Dr. Roland Vazquez, UIU associate professor of anthropology, and his wife, Magdalena, who teaches Spanish at UIU, organized the Fayette concert. "There are three noteworthy elements to Red Cedar's concert," noted Vazquez. "First is the history of collaboration that this wonderful group has had with the area and Upper Iowa University. Second, the concert is indicative of UIU's commitment to enrich the local community culturally, in the spirit of the Liberal Arts. And, lastly, all of the pieces, although in the global idiom of classical music, are inspired by northeast Iowa."
"Long Journey Home" celebrates the return of the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library and the post-flood renewal of the Czech district in Cedar Rapids with colorful and entertaining trios with strong Czech influences. These trios were written over the past decade for Red Cedar Chamber Music by its four composers-in-residence – Jerry Owen, Andrew Simpson, Harvey Sollberger and Michael Gilbertson. Listeners will find familiar tunes woven into these trios, which draw inspiration from Anton Dvorak's famous "American Quartet," written in Spillville in 1893, and from "Whither Little Path," a collection of Czech folksongs by Cedar Rapids' legendary Czech grande dame Alma Turechek.
The centerpiece of "Long Journey Home" is the world premiere of Michael Gilbertson's composition of the same name, completed this July. Gilbertson, a Dubuque native and rising young composer, wrote "Long Journey Home" as he traveled back to Iowa from New Haven, Connecticut, after completing his first year of study for a master's degree in composition at Yale. The title,"Long Journey Home," also aptly describes the return of the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library to its home after its building was rescued, moved and renovated following the flood of 2008. Gilbertson, Red Cedar's current composer-in-residence, will complete his studies at Yale next summer and will write an extended, multi-movement work for Red Cedar to premiere in 2014.
Additional selections will include Jerry Owen's "Trio Concertant Over Czech Folk Songs,"which premiered at the Museum in 2002, and four variations from "Variations on a Theme by Dvorak," which was the centerpiece of a collaboration between Red Cedar and the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library that led to a performance at the National Museum in Prague in 2004.
The first half of the concert features Harvey Sollberger's response to all four movements of Dvorak's "American Quartet." Simply titled "Spillville,"the piece was composed by Harvey in 2006.The success of "Spillville" led to his collaboration with Red Cedar as its third composer-in-residence.
This concert also reconnects Red Cedar to its roots at the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library. In November 1996, scarcely a year after the building was dedicated, Jan Boland, John Dowdall and violist David Miller performed a concert at the Museum. It was this performance that inspired the idea to form Red Cedar Chamber Music and the organization takes its name from the Cedar River adjacent to the Museum, commonly referred to as the Red Cedar River in 19th-century diaries and journals.
Michael Gilbertson, a native of Dubuque, studied composition with Samuel Adler, John Corigliano, Christopher Rouse at The Juilliard School. He is currently a master's student at the Yale School of Music where he has studied with Ezra Laderman and Christopher Theofanidis. Jan Boland, holds a Doctorate in Musical Arts from the University of Iowa and her Method for the One-Keyed Flute, published by University of California Press is the standard text for baroque flute instruction. John Dowdall studied guitar performance at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, Austria, and holds a master's degree in musicology from the University of Iowa. Boland and Dowdall are co-founders of Red Cedar Chamber Music and each has received a Solo Artist Fellowship from The National Endowment for the Arts. Carey Bostian is a multifaceted musician with an active performing career as the principal cellist with Orchestra Iowa, as a chamber musician with College Street Music and as the conductor and artistic director of the Iowa City Community String Orchestra.
For more information visit http://www.redcedar.orgor http://www.culturalcorridor.org or call 319/377-8028.
About Upper Iowa University
Founded in 1857, Upper Iowa University is a private, not-for-profit university providing undergraduate and graduate degree programs and leadership development opportunities to about 6,200 students—nationally and internationally—at its Fayette campus and learning centers worldwide. Upper Iowa University is a recognized innovator in offering accredited, quality programs through flexible, multiple delivery systems, including online and independent study.
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