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Husband-wife duo in residence this week
GREENCASTLE -- Violinist Haroutune Bedelian and pianist Lorna Griffitt -- a husband and wife team who have performed around the world -- will come to the DePauw University School of Music this week for a two-day residency.
The visit will include a concert at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in Thompson Recital Hall of DePauw's Green Center for the Performing Arts. The program, which is free and open to all, will feature Debussy's "Sonata for violin and piano," "Sonata in A major for violin and piano," "Op. 47" by Ludwig van Beethoven and Robert Schumann's "Sonata for violin and piano, Op. 9." The duo will also offer individual master classes for students on Tuesday night.
Griffitt is a former DePauw faculty member. In 2009, Centaur Records released its recording of Johann Sebastian Bach's "Six Sonatas and Partitas" with the Robert Schumann piano accompaniment. This is the first time these works appear on compact disc in their entirety.
She began her performing career at age 16 as a soloist with the Louisville Orchestra under the direction of Robert Whitney, in a performance of the Grieg "Piano Concerto in A Minor." She received her doctorate with distinction in piano performance from Indiana University under the tutelage of Menahem Pressler.
Griffitt enjoys an active career as soloist, chamber musician and pedagogue in the United States and in South America, Europe and the Middle East. She began her teaching career in 1974 at DePauw and joined the music faculty at the University of California, Irvine in 1993. For nearly two decades, she was a faculty member for the Indiana University Piano Academy in Bloomington.
Currently during the summers, Griffitt is invited as guest artist to the Schlern International Music Festival in Voels am Schlern, Italy, the Sound Waves Music Festival in Lincoln City, Ore. and to the International Cello Encounter in Rio de Janeiro, where she teaches, gives master classes and performs in concerto and chamber concerts with various international artists. In September, she was invited to perform for a special concert at the Presidential Place in Nicosia, Cyprus.
Bedelian is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, London, where at age 20 he won the first prize in the BBC Violin Competition. Bedelian has performed in major cities, festivals and concert halls throughout North and South America, the United Kingdom, Europe and the Middle East and has appeared in numerous radio and television broadcasts.