A performance worth evaluating
No period of music will be left behind at the fall Spotlight on the Teachers Benefit Concert “Classics You Love” this Sunday, Sept. 25, at the Newport Performing Arts Center.
Presented by the Lincoln County District of the Oregon Music Teachers Association, this year’s concert will feature seven local music teachers, one guest instrumentalist and one guest vocalist.
“Our group of performing teachers is really growing,” member Jessie Treon said. “It’s exciting to have so many joining us on stage. It's fun for us to change partners and come up with new combinations of partners. This fall we have classics from every period of music, from Baroque to contemporary, plus a touch of the global with an example of Turkish classical music written in the 17th Century, sung acapella by our guest vocalist, Akia Woods.”
Historical pieces include Christine McKenney and Woods performing “Stabat Mater Dolorosa,” a gem of the Baroque period by Giovanni Pergolesi, and Evelyn Archer, bassoonist, will perform another Baroque work by Johann Ernst Galliard, accompanied by Mary Lee Scoville.
The concert will open with the “Overture from the Marriage of Figaro” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, arranged for piano quartet and representing the Classical period. Moving to the Romantic period, pianists Scoville and Treon will perform three of Robert Schuman’s “Canonic Etudes.” Cathy Champion-Predmore and Rita Warton will also perform on two pianos with a lovely work by Cecile Chaminade, a French Romantic. Treon and Champion-Predmore will add more to this period with Felix Mendelssohn and John Field. Mary Morganti and Ramona Goddard will bring things to the Impressionist period with solos by Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. One more French composer, Albert Lavignac composed the quartet’s second number on the program.
Moving into the 20th Century, Rita Warton will add color and humor with a solo piano piece by Cuban composer, Ignacio Cervantes, and a humorous vocal number by Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen. Champion-Predmore will perform the most modern work with a piano solo written by American composer Phillip Glass.
“Every year our performers choose their own repertoire, but this recital is the only one I’ve seen in the past 20-odd years with such a variety of musical styles spanning five centuries,” Warton said. “Each piece is a stellar example of what music can offer us through time and around the globe. You won’t want to miss it.”
The concert begins at 2 pm at the Newport Performing Arts Center, located at 777 W Olive Street. Admission is by donation to the Suzanne Brown Student Aid Fund. Masks are required but not proof of vaccination. For more information, go to omta-lincolncounty.org or call 541-563-4183.